


another head aches, another heart breaks

by jonphaedrus



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alcohol, Blood and Injury, Butt Plugs, Canon-Typical Violence, Characters Being Triggered, Chastity Device, Disabled Character, F/F, Gunshot Wounds, Human Trafficking, In-Context Triggering, M/M, May/December Relationship, Medical Trauma, Multiple Orgasms, My Fair Lady jokes everywhere, Needles, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Riding, Slow Build, Suicidal Harry, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, Surgery, Traumatic Brain Injury, UST, blood transfusion, canon-typical spy missions, coma recovery, harry hart is terrible at being an actual functioning human being, i swear to god im going to make them have sex if it kills me, matchmaker Merlin, medical drama, more tags to come, serious injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-05 13:15:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4181187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a truth universally acknowledged that every good story has its Lazarus.</p><p>(or; the one where harry hart dies, and then lives again)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. everyone knows you're going to live, so you might as well start trying

**Author's Note:**

> so, this started out as four completely separate fic ideas that all got kind of half-baked and i decided to combine into one monster fanfic, because obviously writing 30000k+ of kingsman fanfic is definitely what i should do in my free time. here it is anyway. there is just So Much.
> 
> I'd like to thank the lovely sonicherosfan for betaing and the fantastic annabelleaveline for a tremendous brit pick and edit. this monstrosity couldn't exist without their help, and i am incredibly indebted to them for it. this has been more than a month in the making and it still isnt quite done, but i'm glad to finally get to post it. hopefully i'll be able to finish the final chapter in the weeks i have left for editing this, because this crazy trainride needs a happy ending, obvs.
> 
> buckle your seatbelts, i guess?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or; the one where harry hart dies, and then lives again)

* * *

  _rise from your cold hospital bed_  
_you're not dying_  
_everyone knows you're going to live  
__so you might as well start trying_

 

_(firewood, regina spektor)_

 

A lot of people died on Valentine’s Day. A damn lot of people also didn’t die, so it could have been a lot worse. A specific church in Kentucky was badly hit, precisely twenty-four hours before everything went to shit, but very fucking lucky for them, someone had had the sense to call 911 from the local neighbourhood.

Most of them didn’t survive. Most of them were dead on-scene, before the ambulances ever even got there. There were a few that came out mostly unscathed, just badly bruised. There were plenty that had to cope with gunshot wounds for the rest of their lives. And, there was the man, in the suit, on the tarmac.

His name was, according to the hospital records, John Doe. He was somewhere in his mid-fifties, in very good health, almost entirely unscathed from whatever the hell he had walked out of in the church (something which nobody ever did look into, because things got a lot worse right afterward)—aside, of course, from the gaping gunshot wound through the left side of his face.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that every good story has its Lazarus.

 

 

It was three days after V-Day. Eggsy woke up, for the third day in a row, on the sofa in the Kingsman HQ, Roxy passed out on the floor next to him in a sleeping bag. The opposite chair, over-stuffed and cushy, had been recently vacated, judging by the tossed over blankets. Eggsy made an unhappy noise in the back of his throat and pressed his hands to his face, glancing at the grandfather clock in the corner to see it was half-past eight, and he stretched out a toe to shove into Roxy’s side.

She made a noise that sounded sort of like what a bear would say if you interrupted it at six in the morning during hibernation asking if it had heard the rumours of the second coming of Christ Our Lord And Saviour.

“Rox,” Eggsy murmured, shoving her with his toe again. She opened one eye and gave him a look that could kill. “Rox, get up.” In response, she made a noise that possibly was supposed to be _why_ but came out sounding more like the noise a coffee grinder might make if it tried to talk. Eggsy shoved her again, and she pulled her pillow out from under her head and hit him in the face with it.

Normally, he would’ve said something, but considering that neither of them had had more than about two hours of sleep in three days (four, for Eggsy, because he hadn’t slept that first night, not without Harry there) and honestly he completely understood her feelings. On the other hand, they both had to get up.

“Merlin’s gone,” Eggsy said, and Roxy stuck her eyes up over her sleeping bag and this time actually groaned and dragged herself upright. Her hair was a fucking catastrophe, sticking up at all sorts of all angles and badly matted, and Eggsy knew he wasn’t much better, but he still rolled himself up off of the couch and dragged his hands over his face, righted his trousers, and started moving.

The couch was warm. The mansion was cold. Regardless, they had to get up.

Fortunately, Roxy was right after him, bundling herself in his discarded blanket, and they shuffled through the mansion hallways side by side, holding each others’ hands like a couple of exhausted kids, until Eggsy muffled a jaw-cracking yawn in the back of his free hand and pushed open the door to Merlin’s office. 

He was the precise same he had been the last three days. In an undershirt and slacks, with an ever-increasing amount of fuzz on and around his head and face, and bloodshot, sleep-bagged eyes. He spun around in his chair and looked at Eggsy and Roxy, his hazel eyes unreadable, and sat there for a moment before he said:

“You two look like death warmed over.” 

Eggsy flipped him a two-fingered salute, and Roxy made the coffee grinder noise again. Merlin raised his eyebrows.

“I wasn’t aware humans could make that noise,” he said, quietly, some astonished pride in his voice, before he folded his fingers in his lap.

“Why’re we up so early?” Eggsy yawned into the back of his hand again, vaguely aware that he and Roxy were still holding hands but not really caring because she was turning to put her face into his bicep, and honestly, yeah, he could get with that program. Falling asleep on their feet. He thought that was a Merlin-branch-only power.

“Because Percival finally checked back in.” The agent had gone completely off the grid, nobody had known if he was alive. Roxy perked up immediately, staring at Merlin, who smiled. “He’s downstairs, Rox. Broken arm, exhausted, otherwise fine.”

“Ta,” she murmured, and pulled away from Eggsy. “Can I...?” 

“Go,” Merlin gestured with his fingers and she turned around and scuffed back out of the man’s office, the quiet whisper of her blanket following her footsteps, and Eggsy found himself smiling even as his heart clenched. Percival was Roxy’s father, and there had the past few days had existed in a frightening vacuum there where they hadn’t known if he was alive or dead, and the anguish that had haunted the back of her eyes had (quite frankly) been a bit heartbreaking.

At least one of them could get their missing person back. 

It wasn’t until Merlin’s quiet voice said, “Eggsy,” that he realised he’d been staring after Roxy that whole time, and he looked back over at the older man, who still looked tired and worn-thin. “Percival was the last one missing.” They knew, for a fact, that Galahad, Arthur, Bors, and Kay were definitively dead: they had checked the logs for Valentine’s chips after everything had been less gone-to-shit and confirmed the identities of two of those four. They had found Bedivere shot, and Caradoc had dropped off of the map completely. His tracker wasn’t even functioning. Percival they at least had known was _somewhere_ , state of existence nonwithstanding. They were as full as they were going to get. “I thought you might want to...” Merlin paused, licked his lips, and sighed. 

“I’m going to Kentucky.” He finally managed. _To get Harry’s body_ , Merlin didn’t say. “Do you want to come with?”

“Yea,” Eggsy said, before he could stop himself. Merlin smiled in response, wan and thin. It didn’t reach his eyes. 

“I thought you might. Go get dressed, then.” Eggsy nodded, and left the room.

They were going to have to go get Harry. And bring him back. And have a proper funeral.

Eggsy had already seen the medals laid out on Merlin’s desk, the day before. Harry’s had been the very first one.

Merlin had wordlessly given it to him then and there, and Eggsy had put it in his pocket, and stabbed himself with the pin on the back to keep from crying.

 

 

“Are you sure you should be flying?” Roxy shouted from where they were standing just outside the plane, and Merlin scowled at her.

“I’ve flown extractions on less sleep, young lady!” He yelled back, and she gave him the same bear at six am look that Eggsy was starting to associate with not-very-good things, but she let it pass. “You and your da are to check in with me every hour _on_ the hour, and alert me immediately if something happens!” 

“I heard you the first time!” Roxy shouted back, and Eggsy just shoved on Merlin’s shoulder.

“Let’s _go_ , before you 'ave to refuel the jet,” he reminded, and Merlin scowled, Roxy scowled, Eggsy ignored them both, waved to his best mate, and pulled up the ramp onto the jet. Roxy had told him, the night after they had gotten back from their twenty-four hours with their proposers, that she’d grown quite the crush on Merlin, and he had ribbed her about it endlessly, just like she had when he’d admitted to his infatuation with Harry. It was all in good fun then. Not like it was now.

He couldn’t say he wasn’t a little bit jealous, even though it was terrible that he was.

 

 

“Good afternoon,” Merlin said, to the tired-looking policeman behind the counter of the police station in the little Kentucky town Harry had died on the pavement of. “We’re here to identify one of...we’re here to find one of our friends,” he settled on, not saying _bodies_. Eggsy didn’t blame him. 

The officer grunted, and waved them through. “Can I get some ID?” He asked it with the tired intonation of a man speaking by rote, and both Eggsy and Merlin produced their false IDs, which the man looked at, made a face at when he couldn’t figure out the whole British Drivers License thing, and waved them on through. They followed the twists and turns of the cut-and-paste Police Office halls, over shoddy linoleum and under burnt-out fluorescents, until Merlin pushed open a door at the end. 

There was a morgue.

“Bloody ‘ell,” Eggsy said, his voice hushed, and Merlin’s face closed off. He shut his eyes.

“Someday,” he said, quietly, “I’m going to invent a way to bring Richmond Valentine back to life, and then I’m going to kill him again, because I didn’t get to last time.” Eggsy agreed. Wholeheartedly.

It had been a week now, almost, and there were still nearly seventy bodies in there. They were in varying states of disarray, and the two of them split up, silently taking up either side of the room. Eggsy, to his horror, realised he recognised some of the people he moved past. He remembered this woman, who Harry had shot in the head. He remembered that man, who Harry had smashed in the face with incense. He remembered this bloke, who had stabbed Harry in the back and had then been impaled with the older man’s righteous, mad, limitless fury.

But, even after they had been patiently going through the morgue for nearly an hour, had checked all the bodies twice, when Eggsy thought his hands would never be clean again and that he would have nightmares for the rest of his fucking _life_ about that church, that awful church—even then...they still didn’t find Harry. Nothing. 

Eggsy trooped back out after Merlin, who had his mouth in a thin line. They went together to the front desk again, and Merlin pulled out his phone and flicked through photos until he pulled up one of Harry’s face, and showed it to the officer on duty.

“Did this man come in with the rest of the bodies?’ His voice sounded tired and thin. He had given up on not calling them bodies. The police officer leaned closer, frowning as his broad forehead wrinkled, and shook his head.

“No. He might’ve been one of the lucky ones. Two dozen survived, or thereabouts. So you might want to go check out the hospital.” The man pulled out a sticky note and started drawing a map, which he reached over and stuck to the front of the counter. Merlin took it. “That’s the hospital where they’re keeping the ones who weren’t able to go home. You can go look there.”

“Thank you,” Merlin said, voice uncharacteristically tight, and Eggsy couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Could barely breathe. He could hardly think.

Harry wasn’t in a cold morgue, with seventy other bodies, most of which he had put there. Harry wasn’t a frozen body, waiting to be cremated or buried, whichever.

For the first time, in what seemed like a very long time, Eggsy felt something he had given up on. He felt _hope_. It was a burning, aching fire in his chest, like immolation, like dying. But it was there. It was real.

Harry Hart might just be alive.

 

 

“Bloody hell,” Merlin said, and Eggsy echoed the sentiment with his own quiet: 

“Shitting Christ,”

Harry was alive. He was alive, and Eggsy was holding tight onto the railing at the foot of his bed, and he wasn’t. He didn’t—

He’d seen the moment it had happen. The muzzle of Valentine’s gun, the split-second of blast radius fire, the shattering of glass and metal, and then the heavy _thud_ of Harry’s body hitting the pavement. The grey, cloudy sky wheeling overhead, a final note on the whole horrible symphony. And now, he could see the results first-hand on his own.

Harry was very pale, and very still. He was hooked up to more machines than Eggsy had literally ever seen attached to one person, and that included the _last_ time Harry had been in a coma. He was crammed into a trauma ward overflowing with other people, both from the church and from the rest of V-Day, but Harry’s bed was set off to the side. Probably because he’d had no visitors. Best to keep him out of the way for everyone else. 

Merlin leaned forward and pulled Harry’s chart off of the foot of the bed even as Eggsy sank into the single chair at Harry’s bedside, reached out, hesitated, and then took one of the man’s hands in his own. It was cool, but not cold, and floppy, not stiff. Boneless, almost.

“If you look at 'im right from this side 'e just looks like 'e’s sleeping,” Eggsy’s voice came out with a hysterical-sounding crack, and he almost wheezed when he felt Merlin’s hand on the back of his shoulder. “Just sleeping. Sleeping with. With a fucking—“

“It could have been a lot worse,” Merlin said, rubbing his fingers warm and soothing and slow on Eggsy’s back. “His vitals are strong. He apparently—“ Merlin’s voice choked off. Eggsy looked up from where he was sitting, to find the older man’s hazel eyes wide.

“He died for six minutes on the operating table,” he said, very quietly. 

And that, after everything fucking _else_ in his life, after all the pain and death and exhaustion, _that_ was what made Eggsy cry.

 

 

A doctor came, eventually. His nametag read _Aiden Hobbes_ and he was disarmingly greying-blond, smiled broadly, and despite being the same height as Merlin stood awkwardly in his skin like he was about two feet taller. They talked at length once the doctor had ascertained that here was a friend of their mysterious John Doe, about medical terminology that Eggsy mostly didn’t understand, so he just sat there, held Harry’s hand, watched his face.

Harry looked...Harry looked. His hair was all shaved off, but growing back in as fuzz alongside his beard. The entire left side of his face was bandaged up, covered in gauze. There were a few yellowing bruises around his chest and arms, revealed by his hospital gown. His right shoulder, where he had been stabbed, was bandaged up. There were gunpowder burns healing on the unbandaged part of his face, a few cuts here and there. He was very pale. He was very still. He was breathing artificially, the rise and fall of his chest far too regular, and there were so many tubes and cords hooked up to him that it made Eggsy ache.

However, after nearly two hours had passed, Merlin sat down on the edge of Harry’s bed, and Eggsy looked up at him, and despite the fact that he mainly had no idea what the man had talked about with the doctor, he seemed...less worried.

“In simple terms,” Merlin said, licked his dry lips, his voice slightly hoarse from so much talking and his skin still sagging with lack of sleep, “His brain was badly swollen, but it’s mostly gone down now. He had his skull put back together this morning. He lost his eye, and a good bit of his orbital and the left side of his skull. He very nearly bled out on the operating table the first time; that was when he went into cardiac arrest.

“It’s not good. Not by a long stretch. But he got shot point-blank in the head, so the fact that he’s even alive is a fucking miracle, no two ways about it. His vitals are strong, and he’s been resilient so far, so it’s only a matter of time. He may wake up. He may never wake up. If he does wake up, Jesus Christ himself only has the faintest fucking clue what’s going to be going on in his head, or what is permanent damage. Only time is going to tell with that one.

“Frankly, it was probably the glasses that saved him. Never been so glad I made those damn things bulletproof—nothing doing at point blank range, but it slowed the shot enough that the damage was...limited.” _One way of putting it_ , Eggsy thought.

Eggsy nodded, ignored the cold lead-brick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What now?” His mouth felt like cotton and his throat was dry. His eyes had stopped burning when he had stopped crying, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go of Harry’s hand.

“Now, we put this poor sod on a plane and get him home in one piece, and then let him sleep. For however long he’s going to sleep.” Merlin’s voice ached in the way that Eggsy’s chest did: like someone had reached in and pulled his ribs apart, and now, he couldn’t remember how to put them back together.

His hope was a little, cold, hurtful thing now. It ached. It burned.

It didn’t seem like happiness.

 

 

It took four days to successfully get Harry ready for transport back to the UK, and they ended up having to fly in Ector to help them do it. Together, Eggsy, Merlin, and Ector got Harry onto their plane and made the slow, interminable flight back over the Atlantic to England, and then installed their presumed-dead Galahad back in the medbay, where he belonged.

And then they started waiting.

The first month passed with hardly any change. It was like Eggsy was a new recruit all over again, although he was temporarily working under the codename Galath. Harry lay in hospital, his hair slowly growing back out, his beard coming in until Eggsy just gave in and shaved it himself, because Harry would have hated it. There were no stirrings, no signs of life. He went through four different reconstructive surgeries to fix and replace his badly damaged skull, putting in synthetic bone, doing what they could to patch up his shattered orbital. Harry had one more cardiac arrest. It was a very long month.

The second month was better, just because there were no more surgeries. Harry’s hair grew, Eggsy shaved him, and one by one bandages started to come off. First the big one over his skull, the one that Eggsy had (to Merlin’s horror) taken to calling the produce bag, and then one by one the smaller patches. His head was still heavily bandaged over his eye, but it was changing. The second month was when they started recruiting for positions, taking two groups at a time. Eggsy called on old friends from the Marines, and watched them start their Job Interview From Hell. He ran missions with frantic, panicked energy, just like the rest of the agents, covering too much ground for too little people.

At least they weren’t Merlin, who had stepped in as temporary Arthur until they had the round table filled again. The poor man was losing his mind. Eggsy was also pretty sure he’d seen him fall asleep standing up more times than he thought was physically possible.

It was a good thing he had a whole branch of flunkies, or he probably would have died from caffeine intake if nothing else.

The third month, Harry’s bandages came off down to just the patch over his eye. His hair got so long that Eggsy trimmed it as best as he could with a pair of shears when he did Harry’s weekly shave. He told Harry about his missions, read him books, played him music, sat with him in his empty infirmary room and watched as his mentor just...wasted away. The Harry, pale (but himself), that they had found in Kentucky, wasn’t there any more. Instead, Eggsy visited a man who had lost much of his weight and muscle mass. He was remarkably thin, and still unusually pale. At least he was warm, now.

He started breathing on his own. This was a good sign. But still didn’t wake.

In the fourth month, Merlin came and sat down, hands folded between his knees, next to Eggsy in the visitors chairs. Eggsy had just brought in more comfortable ones, since one or the other of them was almost always there, and if he was there, Roxy was there as often as she could be too. So that Harry would have a friendly face, when he woke up. Eggsy hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that it might be _if_.

For a long time, they simply sat in silence, Eggsy holding Harry’s hand, waiting for him to wake up. Just like he would wait for him to wake up forever. 

“He has no family,” Merlin said, loud in the silence broken only by Harry’s heart monitor’s beep and the even slowness of his breath. “He’s an only child, his parents died when he was young, both of them only children as well. He always thought of Chester as a bit of an unwanted father, I think.” Merlin rubbed his thumbs together and Eggsy looked at him.

“You’re going somewhere with this,” he settled for, eyes narrowed slightly, and Merlin sighed. Nodded.

“I’m his medical proxy,” Merlin murmured. “He never signed a DNR; Kingsman doesn’t allow them. He did tell me, though, that...if he ended up. Just. Alive on machines, he didn’t want that. He didn’t want to be a vegetable.” Merlin’s mouth was pinched in at the sides, and his eyes were lined with pain. His thumbs were pressed together so hard that his skin was turning white. “At some point...Eggsy, at some point we have to take him off life support.”

Eggsy stared at him, bit the inside of his lower lip, and started crying.

Merlin sat with him, and he could hear the older man wet snuffle as well, and Eggsy’s only thought was _at least it’s the both of us_.

“Let’s give 'im half a year,” Eggsy said, voice muffled by leaning over and pressing his face against Harry’s hand. “'e deserves that much.” When had Eggsy become one of the people who made calls about Harry’s life or death? When had Eggsy started to matter? When had Merlin started to care what he thought, about when they might kill Harry?

He didn’t want to think about it.

 

 

It didn’t matter, though, because in the fifth month, Harry Hart woke up.

 

 

Lazarus arose. And, because this was real life, and it was never anything like the movies, and nobody woke up soap opera healed and ready to return to their lives, Harry Hart woke because the place where he was pretty sure his eye was supposed to be itched.

The inside of his skull had never itched before, and the experience was so novel that it woke him up.

However, because (sometimes) real life imitates fiction, when Harry woke up, he wasn’t alone. It was a slow surfacing—he started out with a feeling of pressure on his head, and the distant murmur of -----, like he was hearing them through deep, deep water, and he just listened to them for a long time, floating on the current.

“’It doe'n’t matter, ----.  I only wanted to make you ----. -------: ---? ---. ---gins: Because you can’t speak and whistle at the same time. 'iggins groans, another very trying pause.’ God, 'arry, only you would have circled this. You and Shaw probably would’ve been bruvs, Christ. I swear, like half the shit ---- -- ---- -- ----- ---- --- ------ ----- with you. Er, right, sorry, not supposed to bitch at you about your shite taste in books, or plays, or whatever. ‘'iggins: springing up, out of patience, Where the devil is that ----? --- -- -- wait 'ere all day?’ God, you fucking deserve it, 'iggins, you’re a right wanker. You should learn some fucking patience, mate. Whoever 'eard of just acting like this?” There was the quiet slap of a body part hitting something. “I mean, not like you’re much better on the opposite end of the spectrum, 'arry. But, uh. ‘Eliza enters, sunny, self-possessed, and giving a staggeringly convincing exhibition of ease of manner. She ------- - ------ ----------- --- -- -ery much at home. Pickering is too much taken aback to rise.’ What I’m getting from this frankly damp and boring interpretation of a fucking _stellar_ movie is that you’re 'iggins, and, if you are, _please_ get your 'ead out of your arse and shag me, I’m Eliza, and I suppose that makes ------ ---------. He would be. That’s the kind of posh snob you both are.”

Harry listened, listened to the thick, lively voice filling his ears, as it went on to read more, quotations interspersed with lively complaints, almost all of them vulgar, and Harry just...listened. Listened, and took stock.

There was an itch just behind where his left eye should be. He felt numb on his left side, and he kept trying to wiggle his damn toes, but it was like trying to lift the earth, and he was no Atlas. For a long, long time, the voice read on. It stopped, now and then, for water, and then picked up again.

“Christ,” said the voice, and it was getting closer, now. Harry was hearing it like it was just above him, through a wall or a closed door, instead of listening trapped deep under the water, “How fucking long is this, if I have to ---- --- ---- --- ----- ---za and 'iggins making angry doe-eyes at each other while hating each other I’m going to vom, not even kidding. Shaw really --- - -----, --- ----? This is almost as bad as Man and Superman, but at least it’s less shite.” The voice paused, sighed. “All right,” it said, bucking up slightly. “Nothing for it, nothing doing. Let’s get you the end of this book, all right? You poor sod, I hope you fucking appreciate this when you wake up.”

It kept going, going and going and going, until Harry thought he would fall asleep again, but he was so close. So close to the surface, so close to the itch. He felt like his head was stuffed with cotton and air, he felt like his muscles were made of lead, he felt like he was trapped and locked in the cage of his body and couldn’t escape. 

He could wiggle his toes on his right foot, though. The voice didn’t seem to have noticed, too absorbed in what it was reading. “Here’s the very end, then, I guess,” it said, sniffed once. “’That is all,’” Harry somehow felt that no, it probably wasn’t all. “’That is 'ow it has turned out.’ Well I don’t much fancy how it’s turned out, but I suppose we’re stuck wiv it, unless M----- -------- ------- --- --- ---- ---vel works and takes us back to beat in Shaw’s 'ead with a fuckin' lunchbox.” Harry wanted to smile. He didn’t know who Shaw was, or even who the voice was, but that was an interesting mental image, certainly. His face twitched, only slightly. The voice didn’t notice, because it kept going. “’Galatea never ---- ----- -ike Pygmalion,’” good for her, bruv, because I still haven’t the slightest fucking clue who or what you two are or what you’ve been bangin on about. ‘His rel----- -- --- -- --- ------- -- -- ---------- -----able.’”

The snap of a book closing accompanied those -----, and Harry knew that sound. He was so close now, so close to the surface. He could feel a hand touching his, could vaguely smell antiseptic, could hear a rhythmic beeping, could see light. Could see light on one side 

“Seriously, 'arry, if you do this sh-- -- -- -- ----- -- -- ------- ---- ---. ------ ---‘- -- ----- ------ --- -- ---- ---. I didn’t come all this way to have you toss me out because I’m too good.”

Harry Hart felt the light.

He opened his eye.

It was very bright. 

He squeezed his right hand, just slightly. His fingers barely curled, but the gasp was audible, and he turned his head ever so slightly, hazy vision spinning wildly, to see a young man dressed in a very nice, if rumpled, suit, staring at him. His green eyes were bright and incredibly wide behind a pair of thick-framed ------- and he stared at Harry like Harry had just made the sun come up at midafternoon.

“Galatea,” Harry said, barely whispering the ----, choking around the tube down his throat, the motion of pronouncing those four syllables one of the hardest things he’d done in his entire life.

The boy stared at him, and then started crying, smiling, laughing, whooping, and screamed, “Merl--! Get your ---- ------ --se down here right now! He’s awake, Merlin, he’s awake, he’s fucking _awake_!”

Harry made it until a tall bald man, with equally thick-framed glasses and in a cardigan of a frankly extremely unflattering shade of mustard pushed into his room, adjusted his glasses, and Harry knew him, he _knew_ him.

Zeb. Zebedee John. Merlin. His. His ---- ------.

Harry fell back into unconsciousness before they could even talk, but he fell back this time into actual sleep, and this time, he did it with a smile on his face.

 

 

Four days later, Harry surfaced again, less exhausted, and this time he could move the fingers on his right hand slightly more, could move his toes, and the after what felt like two ----- of effort gave up on his left hand as a lost cause, for now.

This time, the young man in the suit wasn’t there, but when he managed to press the call button, Merlin appeared again. Harry remembered his name, Merlin. He remembered him. He didn’t remember _why_ he cared so much, why the man was his ---- ------, but that was a start, yes it was.

“Good morning,” Merlin said, sitting down in the chair next to the bed, scooting it forward. Harry blinked, tiredly, at him. “You’ve been one hell of a sleeping beauty, you know that? I thought I was going to finally have to pull the plug on you. I’m pretty sure ----- nearly died on the spot.” He paused, and Harry waited, until he added, “So don’t fucking do it again.”

Harry nodded, very slightly. Merlin huffed.

“All right. I’m going to ask you a few questions. I need to ascertain some of your function and how much you’ve gotten back. You’ve been out for five months, so god only knows what we’re dealing with here. If it’s a simple question, raise one finger as yes, two as no. You can just...whisper if you have to answer.” Merlin stood and leaned forward, and Harry winced slightly as the other man ripped the tape off of his nose and around his mouth, and coughed violently as a tube was pulled up his throat, wheezing in pain the whole time. Panting for breath, Harry slumped back on the sheets as Merlin lifted a cup of water with a straw from the bedside table, and waited, patiently, while Harry leaned forward slowly to take a few small sips.

It was almost exhausting as trying to move the fingers of his left hand had been.

Merlin sat back down, and Harry found himself fighting to stay conscious, exhaustion burning at the back of his eyes, his limbs heavy like lead. Heavier than they had been before.

Merlin pulled out a --------- and a pen, and looked up at Harry. “Just stay with me a little longer. Do you know your name?” One finger for yes. “What is your name?” 

“Harry,” he managed, after a solid few minutes of trying to get it out, and then, even quieter, “Hart.” Merlin smiled and ----- something down.

“Do you know _my_ name?” One finger.

“Z. John. Merlin.” Harry coughed again, and Merlin walked him through drinking more water. His eyelid was sagging, heavy, and he wanted to sleep, so much.

“Do you know where you are?”

Harry paused. Hesitated. He recognised the location, knew these walls, but he didn’t know where it was. He just knew that he had been here before. Two fingers, and then he whispered, slurring, quiet enough that Merlin had to lean over, “See, don’t know.”

Merlin frowned, but whatever had been worrying the other man was lost on Harry as he fell back asleep, the undertow dragging him down, his exhausted body collapsing back into sleep.

The next time he woke up, Merlin was still there, and Harry had no idea how much ---- had passed, but the other man looked up from the ------ he was holding in his lap and smiled. “Back at it, then.” Instead of launching into questions, he shifted onto the bed and picked up a bowl of something, but Harry didn’t question it because Merlin was his ---- ------ and he trusted the man with his life.

Instead, he just ate spoonful after spoonful of soup, until he fell asleep again, nodded off with his chin on his chest, but felt less strained for it.

 

 

It went on like that for what had to be several ----, Harry waking up and eating or drinking, and each time he was able to be awake a little longer, answer a few more of Merlin’s questions. It was on the seventh such time he awoke that he stared at the man next to his bed, and finally murmured, “Suit,” and pointed at the chair next to Merlin. He was able to force out sentences if he tried very hard, but they came out stilted, confused, ----- shuffled, and often missing things in the middle. He was sticking with single -----, and even monosyllabic statements when he could get away with them, for now.

Merlin looked at the chair next to him, and then back at Harry. “Do you know his name?” He asked, and Harry raised two fingers. Merlin frowned, his broad forehead wrinkling, and noted that down. “He’s out on a mission, he should hopefully be back at the end of this week, if all goes well.”

“When?” Harry asked, slurring the -----. Merlin tapped his finger on his ------ and hummed.

“You’ve been waking up quite reliably twice a day, so probably five more times, and he’ll be there on the sixth.” Harry raised one finger, because he understood.

“M—,” the _erlin_ caught in his throat, bubbled up against the back of his jaw, and Harry clenched his teeth, narrowed his eye, and breathed hard, fighting through the clenching lock of his voice, choking quietly, the ----- not coming, until he finally managed to spit out, “M-Mis—sion?”

Merlin stopped.

Paused.

“Harry,” he said, very quietly. “Do you know who you are?” The tone of his voice said, without words, that he certainly didn’t mean just Harry knowing his own name.

Harry stared at him. He...he knew his name. He knew Merlin was his ---- ------ and that ----- who wore the suit was...important, was someone important. He knew that he had been in this room before, he knew that it was somewhere safe. He knew that he had lots of thoughts, and intentions, and memories, but they were impossible to reach, just out of his grasp. Deep, deep underwater, twisted, echoed, and too hazy for him to see right, a magic eye picture that just refused to focus itself.

He remembered...throbbing, pulsing. He remembered screaming. He remembered the blast of a car backfiring, maybe. So loud it deafened him. The tinkle of glass. He remembered searing pain, a deep stabbing ache in the back of his right shoulder. He remembered flat brown eyes and a sunburst circle so bright it blinded him, left an indelible mark on the back of his missing retina. He remembered Merlin’s voice, in his ear. He remembered a man shouting. He remembered—

He raised two fingers.

 

 

When Eggsy got back from his mission, Merlin sat him down in his office, and stared the younger man in the eye for a long, dead silence. Looking for his words. “You did a bloody fantastic job,” Merlin said, finally, honestly. “That was a difficult extraction and you handled it with aplomb. I’m proud of you for that. However, we need to talk.”

Eggsy stiffened.

“It’s Harry, innit?” he said, quietly. By Eggsy’s own request, Merlin had given him no information about Harry’s condition while he had been on mission. To make sure he didn’t fuck up, and get himself sent home and put in hospital. Or worse. “Christ, Merlin, he hasn’t fallen back asleep, has 'e?”

“No, he’s been waking up quite like clockwork, twice a day. He can eat a full bowl of broth now, and can occasionally manage sentences. He seems to have comprehension of most things, but is missing quite a lot of words. He doesn’t seem to be getting them back, yet, but he’s gotten better at forcing out the ones he _does_ know. He’s not even been awake for two weeks yet, so he’s been doing quite well with that in mind.” Merlin paused.

“However,” Eggsy supplied, his voice like iron and cold death. Merlin’s face twisted.

“He remembers me. He knows his own name. He knows you, but...Eggsy, he doesn’t know your name. And, what’s more...he doesn’t.” His voice cracked on the last word, and Merlin scrubbed his hand over his face, sighed, fingers pressed up under the lenses of his hornrims. “He doesn’t remember anything about who he is, or who he was before. He doesn’t even know his own birthday.”

Eggsy’s eyes were wide, pained, his face stricken. His mouth was a twisted questionmark of a line, and there were tears welling up over his lower lashes. “No,” he said, quietly, voice cracking. Merlin set a hand on his knee. “Will—will 'e remember, do you think, he’ll—'e can’t be, Merlin, it’s _Harry_ he has to—“

“Time will tell,” Merlin said, and just pulled Eggsy closer, let the younger man bury his face in Merlin’s shoulder, one hand balled up in his jumper, while he cried. “For now, all we can do is be there for him. I just wanted you to know before you saw him. So you didn’t expect too much.” Eggsy nodded, frantically, and Merlin thought about dry cleaning bills and expensive cashmere, but didn’t make Eggsy pull back until his face was dry and he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes and nose, folded his exhaustion and tears and fear back up into him and put on the strong, cocksure smiling face that he was known for. “Harry doesn’t know anything about the church, or what put him in the coma, or Valentine. Let’s keep it that way, for now. Once he’s had a bit more recovery, we’ll see what we can do to jog his memory.” Eggsy just kept nodding, sullen, wet, exhausted.

The bible never said whether or not Lazarus rose whole and hale.

It just said he rose.

 

 

The door to his room opened, and Harry looked up from the video he was watching on the _tablet_ , a ---- that Merlin had helped him remember the day before. Standing there, half in the door, was the boy in the suit. He looked slightly different this time, without the thick glasses, his hair less styled, and he smiled slightly. Unsure.

Harry smiled back, wider. Sure. The boy in the suit came in the door and hesitantly came over to sit down next to his bed, hands folded between his knees, and Harry paused the video. He was still having a hard time picking up on -----, but Merlin had been working with him very hard to try and fill some of the gaps that he had, apparently, lost.

“Hi,” said the boy in the suit with the smile. “I’m...I’m -----, Merlin says you don’t remember me.” The pain in his voice made Harry’s heart clench, and it was even harder that despite the fact that he’d now heard the boy’s name multiple times, it didn’t stay in his head. It slid off of him like water, lost almost immediately as soon as he had it back, swallowed up into the abyss of his missing memories.

“No,” Harry managed. He’d gotten to the point that he could actually speak without exhaustion, even if getting the words out was like running a marathon, so he enjoyed it while he could. “I’m,” -----, “I apologise.” The look on the younger man’s face, stricken, made Harry’s heart ache.

After a moment longer, though, that look seemed to fade, replaced instead by a look of surity. The boy in the suit hopped onto the edge of his bed, and grinned. “I’m ----- Unwin. You’re my mentor, yea? You got me into this whole mess,” he gestured at himself, and Harry raised his eyebrows, pointedly, then gestured at himself: it was a brief twitch of his left hand, but better than he’d been doing previously. The boy laughed. “Yeah, you, bruv! You don’t think a bit of rough like me got in 'ere without a bit of polish, eh?”

“M—“ Choke, breathe, force, “M—Me?” Harry still didn’t believe it, not quite. Him, a broken shattered man in a bed, who couldn’t string an entire sentence together without difficulty and couldn’t move most of the left side of his body.

“Yeah, you.” The boy’s face fell, his green eyes dimming slightly. “You know, like...Trading Places? Nikita? Pretty Woman?” Harry just stared at him, wondering if he was supposed to recognise these names. “My Fair Lady?” ----- tried at last, and Harry raised his eyebrows, nodding.

The boy’s face lit up, and he grinned, the look making him lively and youthful, and he said, “You’re full of surprises!”

Harry didn’t know quite why that statement hurt him so much, but it did.

 

 

“Are you ready?” Merlin asked, the boy standing right next to him, looking anxious and very young, not for the first time. Harry sighed, licked his lips, and raised one finger. Yes. He was as ready as he was ever going to be.

Merlin leaned forward, grabbed ahold of the tape over Harry’s left eye, and pulled. Next to him, the boy holding the mirror leaned forward, looking around Merlin’s arm, as the gauze pad that had spent the better part of a year covering Harry’s eye peeled away, and he winced, blinking his good eye at the pain, and stared at the boy’s expression instead of his face.

For a moment, there was a twist to it—not horror, but sorrow. “Oh, 'arry,” he said, quietly, “That’s quite the scar.” Harry turned, looked at himself in the mirror, and hesitated, before lifting his hand to his face to feel it. His left eye was gone completely, and left behind was rather a lot of scarring and a heavy pocket. The scar lead back into his hairline, to just over his ear, and it was thick and ropy. He could feel the jagged edge of his skull where bone had shattered, and for a moment, Harry felt...nauseous.

“You’re going to make a shit pirate,” Merlin said, and the moment was gone, and Harry was laughing, covering his eye with his hand and smiling. Of course. 

The boy laughed too, youthful and bright.

 

 

For Harry, recovery was a long, exhausting process. According to Merlin, they started small, although he wasn’t sure how “small” that was supposed to be. They began by first getting him to the point that he could sit up, eat, speak without exhaustion. Then, Merlin started to get him to talk a lot.

For reasons Harry didn’t quite understand himself, he categorically refused to practice around the boy in the suit. He didn’t want to look like a fool, stumbling over his -----, stuttering for sometimes long minutes at a time interrupted only by him shouting expletives at himself. Much of the time, it involved Merlin scrolling through digital databases when Harry could only remember ----- in other languages, trying to match what he said in French to what he had meant in English. The knowledge in his head was a jumble, a mix, and it ached to know that he could barely force his head to wrap around some basic facts.

It was a month and a half after he woke up, a month and a half filled of trying to speak, of struggling to do so much as write his own name, of Merlin slowly coaxing out memories (some of which Harry had started to grasp again, like the names of his parents, his own childhood days at Eton) and sitting up and laying down, moving his arms and legs, discovering what did and did not work, that Merlin finally declared him fit to try walking. 

“A w-walker?” Harry said, that evening, as Merlin dumped it in front of him where Harry was sitting with his legs slung over the edge of the bed. “Really, Merlin?”

“When you fall flat on your arse without it, I’m going to have a right fucking laugh.” 

Harry frowned at him, grumbled a quiet, “Sod off,” but still sighed and grabbed onto the handles of the walker.

He tried to stand up.

He did not succeed at standing up. He did, however, manage it with Merlin’s help, and got about five steps before he had to go back to the bed, exhausted, panting.

Again, it was a start.

 

 

After four months of painful, exhausting physical therapy, Harry could walk about the mansion and had his own room back. He could speak without stuttering or freezing up much of the time, although he was still missing lots of ----- (most annoyingly, he was still missing the English term itself) and, for his sake, Harry was pleased that he was beginning to remember who and what he was. His name was Harry Hart. He’d turned fifty-five earlier that year, and he worked for Kingsman. He had been a field agent for years until something ( _what_ , precisely, Merlin still refused to say) had led to him being shot point-blank in the head. His codename was Galahad, and like much of the rest of their organisation, he was rebuilding himself.

With Merlin still acting as interim Arthur while they rebuilt the round table, Harry had pretty much taken over watching the recruits, since he couldn’t do much fucking else. He spent as much time as he could trying to work himself back into proper physical shape, and what other time he had he spent with Merlin and -----, the wonderful boy in the suit who spent so much time by Harry’s side. He helped him through PT, he read him books, watched films with him, brought him takeout, talked, laughed, and didn’t seem to mind that Harry couldn’t remember his name, except when sorrow filled his eyes.

Today, Harry was grimacing in the firing range, staring down at his pistol. He’d remembered now up to about a year before he got shot, or so Merlin said—he remembered enough to know that ----- was the son of Lee Unwin, the man who had died. He remembered, with Merlin’s reminders, that James (Lancelot) was dead (and, oh, how that ached, how that pained him, and how he wished he knew what had happened because that was a thorn in his heart), and who and what he was and did. 

Remembering did not, however, translate to actual skill. Which Harry was discovering. Repeatedly. Mostly, at the moment, by the fact that he had just emptied an entire pistol clip and hadn’t hit within the bloody target _once_.

“You’ll get it back,” said a voice, on his right side, and Harry jumped in surprise, and without meaning to, out came—

“Eggsy, for C-Christ’s sake, I have the—“ he froze. Looked down, good eye wide.

Eggsy. _Eggsy_. That was his name, his name was Eggsy, and he was staring back at Harry with his eyes so large that Harry was pretty sure they were about to pop out of his skull, his mouth half-open, cheeks flushed. “Eggsy,” Harry said again, hardly able to believe it. “Eggsy, your name is Eggsy. Eggsy. Christ, your name is Eggsy.”

“Harry?” Eggsy said, quietly. His voice cracked. “Did you—did you really?” 

“Eggsy!” Harry grabbed the young man, laughing wildly, leaning into him instead of the wall of the firing booth, laughing into Eggsy’s mussed hair, and for a moment the younger man froze, unmoving, and then held him back tight, fingers curling into his shoulderblades through the still-loose wool of his suit coat, his breath suddenly ragged and wet against Harry’s shoulder. “Oh, you dear boy, Eggsy!” 

“You remember me?” Eggsy’s voice cracked, and he was crying, Harry could feel him crying, and just held him tighter, face pressed into his hair over his ear, grinning stupidly. “Harry, Harry, do you—“

“You stupid, foolish, _brilliant_ boy,” Harry whispered, hanging onto him like if he let Eggsy go he would vanish, become forever ethereal. “Look at you, look at you and that suit and  _here_. You’ve done so well, I’m so proud. I can’t believe—how could I not,” and he was babbling but Eggsy was laughing, crying, and Harry couldn’t let him go. “An agent, my god, look at you, my boy. Just fucking look at you. How could I have forgotten, how could I ever have forgotten you?”

Eggsy just cried, cried and laughed, and Harry held tight to him, because here was something he’d gotten back, had come back without even trying, and he couldn’t stop smiling even when his face hurt, because a year and a bullet had taken so much from him, but not this. This had come back. This beautiful, brilliant boy and his smile that could light a room and his warm, open heart had come back.

 

 

 

 

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Merlin said, standing behind Arthur’s chair, in an eerily-quiet dining room, a round table full of agents staring back at him. Every seat was filled except the one at the head of the table, which Eggsy kept looking at and fidgeting. Probably because, as Harry had been reliably informed, Eggsy had killed their previous Arthur there and then proceeded to, moments later, cut a chip out of his neck with a pen nib. Good show. “With every seat once again filled, we can begin the process for electing a new Arthur. As per Kingsman procedure, only senior agents may run for Arthur, but all agents may vote. That means Galath, Lancelot, Bors, Kay, Bedivere, and Caradoc are out of the running.” The table was quiet. They all understood.

“Galath,” Merlin turned to Eggsy, who straightened. He was standing behind Harry’s chair, hands atop the backboard next to the older man’s head, as he would take the place of whichever agent stepped up. “You’re first.”

“Galahad,” he said it, and Harry caught his breath below him, good eye closing for a moment. Merlin nodded.

“Galahad?”

“Percival,” Harry replied, voice tight, not voting for himself because not only was it not gentlemanly, but also because he wasn’t sure he could do it.

“Galahad,” said Bors. “Galahad,” said Kay. “Galahad,” said Bedivere, Caradoc, and Ector. “Galahad,” said Gawain and Tristan. “Percival,” said Roxy, because if Eggsy was in Harry’s corner, then she was firmly in with her father. “Galahad,” said Percival, because again: gentlemen did not vote for themselves.

Harry took a long, deep breath. He stood, and looked at Merlin, who smiled at him, and pulled back the chair at the head of the table. After a moment, Harry stepped over and sat down, slowly. He curled his hands over the armrests, and the other ten agents stared at him. One by one they all nodded, swore allegiance, confirmed their positions under his headsmanship.

He couldn’t make a speech, he still lost too many words, nor was one expected, but after a moment Harry looked to Eggsy, who stared at him like Harry made the sun come up in the morning, and he gestured to his vacated seat. “Sit down, Galahad,” Harry smiled. “Welcome to Kingsman.”

He was almost certain that Eggsy’s smile at that moment could have powered all of London on the wattage of his cheeks alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check me out on tumblr [@professorjonathanphaedrus](http://professorjonathanphaedrus.tumblr.com/)


	2. you never know the top till you get too low

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or, the one where harry hart has a bad time of it)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PLEASE CHECK TAGS FOR UPDATED TRIGGER WARNINGS**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> once again thanks to annabelle/lovelyheart for being a fucking saint god bless without her britpicking id be actually dead lmfao
> 
> id also like to thank my older sister, who has suffered So Much listening to me complain about this monster. thank u for always being there n suffering w/ me. without her this probably wouldnt exist because she just lets me whinge about it. thank.
> 
> also sorry this is a couple days late WE MAY HAVE DECIDED THAT TAKING A BUS LAST-MINUTE TO NYC FOR NYC PRIDE WAS A GOOD IDEA i mean it was an INCREDIBLE IDEA but yeah. it was. definitely a thing.

* * *

_and i know, i know that i did you wrong_  
_but will you trust me when i say that i'll  
_ _make it up to you somehow, somehow_

 

_(i'm so sorry, imagine dragons)_

 

He is in a church. The warm sunlight dapples in low-quality stained glass windows, the kind that are just multicoloured panels, not shapes and pictures. It stains the people inside in squares and flats of red and gold, green flecks coating their cheeks and blue darkening and shading their hair. 

His hands are sticky. He looks down and turns them over, and what he took at first to be black tar turns suddenly and almost sickeningly into red, red blood, dripping down his fingernails and over his fingers and knuckles and hands, staining his skin. He tries to wipe it off with the handkerchief in his pocket, but it only makes it worse, and then he hears a woman say, “Where do you think you’re going?” 

He looks up and she’s staring at him, a gaping wound between her eyes, much of her skull shot away. He wants to say something but his throat is clenched tight like a vice and nothing comes out no matter how hard he tries, and all he can do is stare at the nearly-perfect circular hole that goes straight through her skull, right between her eyes, and she tilts her head at him and asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I don’t know,” he says finally, and the voice sounds hysterical and not at all his own. His hands are shaking. He’s holding a pistol now. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know—“ he raises the pistol and her face is whole and full again, and terror and anguish cloud her features and her soft, lined eyes before he pulls the trigger and he’s screaming, because he knows this carnage. He knows that man in the grey shirt, he knows the pain of that knife stabbing into his shoulder, he knows the noises those pews make as they topple into one another. He knows. He knows. He feels his body move without him meaning to and he cries helplessly like a child as he kills person after person, until he’s standing alone and the guilt is swallowing him up and eating him alive and—

“Where do you think you’re going?” asks the woman on the floor, splayed out and dripping blood in a long, slow, oozing puddle from the empty destruction of her shattered head, and he’s crying helplessly and the left side of his face feels like it’s on fire, he feels like he’s dying.

“I don’t want to go anywhere!” He shouts, and then there’s Eggsy, standing at the end of the church, his green eyes wide and his eyebrows pulled together in worry and fear.

“Harry?” Eggsy says, coming closer. “‘arry, you all right?”

“Get away from me!” He screams, throws his hands up in front of him like they’ll shield him, “Get away from me, don’t come any closer, please, don’t, I’m a monster I’m a fucking monster I did this I did this—“ Eggsy won’t stop and his hands are shaking and he’s still holding the gun and it’s full, he knows this, full of bullets, and he’s sobbing. “Please, Eggsy, please, please,” but Eggsy’s still walking towards him and he’s raising the gun and his finger’s on the trigger and he’s crying so hard he can hardly breathe and Eggsy’s coming closer and the gunshot is so loud that it wakes him up, screaming. 

He was covered in sweat. Harry panicked, shaking, and almost tore out of his sheets and slid out of bed, landed hard on the ground, his left leg buckling almost immediately without his cane. He collapsed onto the floor, covered in cold sweat, and everything was horrible and sharp and he remembered _everything_ , crystal clear and awful, all the things Merlin wouldn’t tell him.

He lay there for what had to be nearly half an hour, curled onto his side, left leg stuck out at an awkward angle, dry-heaving helplessly and crying so hard he was wailing, throat burning and aching and his eye sore and raw. It was like a dam had opened up and he couldn’t stop now, all the memories that had been locked away by the gunshot Richmond Valentine had put through his head pounding up against his temples, playing over and over again against the back of his eyes like a horrible macabre massacre picture show, seared into his skin and burned into his heart.

At some point, the migraine pounding and pounding and pounding and getting louder and harsher and darker and deeper until it took hold of him and grabbed him like claws around the throat and lungs and jerked him and dragged him in deep, into swirling pain and unconsciousness and away, away from the memories and the realisations of what he was, of what he had done, of the monster he had become.

Harry woke, hours later, to an empty house and absolute silence. He felt like someone had run him over. For a long time, he just lay there, back and bad leg aching, and pulled idly at the carpet under his fingers, and thought, each memory coming sluggishly to the forefront, pulsing in time with the beat of his heart in his empty eye socket, aching where his hair and the carpet pressed against it. 

He remembered nothing after the gun was pointed at his head. Nothing at all, from the moment that he realised his life was over and Valentine was going to be the one who ended it until the first time he’d heard Eggsy’s voice, reading to him. His coma was a blank, empty stretch of five months of nothingness, matching with two years of spotty memories before. Merlin had said they might never come back.

He had been pained, but not nearly as devastated as Eggsy had been. To Harry, losing two years of memory was...almost too much. 

Maybe, it would have been better if he just...hadn’t. If they’d stayed gone. If he’d never known.

He didn’t go in to the office that day. He lay on his side on his bedroom floor, not eating, not moving, except for when he got up once to go to the bathroom and then he lay on the floor of the loo instead, crying sluggishly even when his body was too exhausted and dehydrated to cry any more, cried for all the innocent people who had died because he had been there, all the people he had killed without knowing, without meaning, that he had _enjoyed_.

He thought about putting a gun to Eggsy’s head.

He thought about putting a gun to his own head.

He thought about that the most.

 

 

Harry knocked on the heavy steel door in front of him, and waited for a heavily-accented grunt from behind it before he pushed it open and stepped inside. Merlin was sitting at his desk, scanning rapidly down his tablet, four monitors pulsing in front of him, each with a different glasses-eye view of an agent’s mission, and Harry hesitated before he closed the door and walked over, leaning heavily on his cane with each step. He sank into the extra chair next to Merlin and stared at the screens, rubbed at the edge of his eye patch.

They sat there, in dead silence, for a long time, while Harry just watched the screens and thought. Even though he had mostly regained his speaking faculties, minus some severe (and annoying) aphasia, he had discovered that he was much quieter than he used to be. More pensive. It just didn’t seem quite as necessary to speak when he didn’t have to.

“Something on your mind?” Merlin said, at last, looking up at him. Harry hesitated. “You wouldn’t be in here brooding if you didn’t have something you wanted to say,” the other man added, and Harry sighed. “Arthur—“

“When am I going to go back out in the field.” Harry replied, not looking away from the monitors, ignoring the shaking of his hands and the blood and cordite memory behind his eyes. “I passed field tests two months ago, Merlin. I’m able to shoot just as well as every other agent. Why am I not out there.” Arthur made the calls about field missions, but Merlin assigned them.

And so far, Merlin hadn’t assigned him a single fucking one. Even the previous Arthur, who had been nearly ninety when Eggsy had helped him the rest of the way along to his grave, had still gone on a field mission or two a year.

Merlin was very quiet, and Harry had to steel himself before he could look over at the other man, who was holding his tablet and staring down at it. He was doing the exact same thing Harry had just been doing: avoiding eye contact. Avoiding the truth. Avoiding the thoughts of pointing a gun at a blonde woman with soft eyes and the scent of incense burning skin.

“Harry,” Merlin didn’t look up. “You know why.” Because his leg was collapsing and he saw ghosts in the corners of his eyes and he’d thrown up the last time he’d held a gun and passed his field tests anyway, because he had nightmares about dead bodies in a church and kept thinking _maybe I should have died too maybe I should have died too maybe I should have died too._

Harry had never been so glad that Merlin wasn’t looking at him, because his face twisted in a rictus of a grimace and he shoved himself to his feet, almost cursed, cursed how hard it was to stand up, the weakness in his left leg that _still hadn’t gone away_ even after half a year of physical therapy since he was elected Arthur, and didn’t say anything.

He just slammed back out of Merlin’s office, like a petulant child, cursing himself every step of the way. Hating himself. Hating what he had become.

 

 

Eggsy came back from his mission to Latvia two days later, and just like every other mission, he came over to Harry’s house afterward. The knock on his door was loud in the quiet, and Harry sat on his couch, stared at _Britain’s Best Bakers_ on the telly, and then mechanically shut it off, took his cane, and limped over to the front door.

His left leg dragged heavy and unresponsive behind him, until Harry got to the door and unlocked it, pulling it open to reveal the young man, grinning, on his front step.

“Hey, ‘arry. Merlin’s ace, look what he had waiting for me!” Eggsy held up a plastic bag he had in one hand, and Harry shut down all the things Harry felt, and pushed forward the Arthur smile, the agent strength. Nothing was wrong. He would be fine. “From that Thai place you like.”

“What would I do without friends like you and Merlin, I never cease to—“ He paused. “I never cease to be glad for you.” Eggsy and Harry made the same face at the same time, because that had been a roundabout way of covering for his missing words, but Harry still stepped back, opening his door the rest of the way. “Come in, my dear boy. What would you like with that?” 

“Just water, yeah? Mum wants to take me out for pints after, so I’ll pass on anything stronger.” Harry nodded. He was still on too many medications to drink, so he poured two glasses of water, one for each of them, at the kitchen table, and pulled out plates and utensils to eat the Thai food properly. One set of chopsticks, for Eggsy. One fork, for him. For his hands, that still didn’t grip quite right, but at least they didn’t shake at _least_ they didn’t shake. 

Eggsy made a face and muttered something about forks being good enough, but he had to use to learn chopsticks for the first time he had an Asian mission. It hadn’t happened yet, but it would.

Sitting down at his table, retrieving his cane and hooking it over the back of his chair, Harry stretched out his bad leg and scooped the food from the takeout container onto his plate, watching Eggsy as the younger man did the same (less deftly, which made him feel a bit better) and they settled into an easy silence.

“How did it go?” Harry asked, working his way into his pad thai. He’d be seeing the footage and mission reports later after Merlin compiled them, but getting it from the horse’s mouth was always better.

“Pre’y wizard,” Eggsy replied, making a mess of his rice. Again. Harry didn’t have the heart to tell him off for it. “Aside from the hiding in a dumpster part, that was fucking _rank_.” Harry looked up, surprised, his right eyebrow quirked as he waited for more information. The right side of his face was still significantly more expressive than the left.

“What on earth were you doing in a dumpster.” Harry paused. “Not in your bloody _suit_?” Eggsy gave him a look in return like _bruv, are you fucking mental?_

“Yes, in my suit. Fucking ‘ell, Harry, it’s a fuckin’ miracle you ever made it as a spy.” Harry spluttered, and pointed his fork accusatorially at Eggsy’s face. 

“Don’t say that to your superior.” Eggsy snorted. “I’m quite serious, Eggsy. I’ve been at this longer than you have been alive.” And Christ, didn’t that just strike home. “I’ve had my fair share of close scrapes.”

“But you wouldn’t dive in a dumpster if you was wearing your suit,” Eggsy gave him a cheeky look from under his eyebrows. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Considering the price of my suits, certainly _not_ ,” Harry huffed, and shook his head as he continued to eat. “You should be more careful with them, they’re worth a fortune.” 

“Ye, trust me, bruv, I know.” Eggsy made a face. “Most of me paycheck goes to replacing the ones that get shot up. What I ain’t putting away for Daisy or giving to me mum, anyway. Worth it, though—they’re fucking brilliant, they are.”

Harry stared at his pad thai, his chest tight, and wished he could eat his words.

Sometimes he forgot that Eggsy didn’t have the old money hiding behind his account that Harry did. Sometimes he forgot that Eggsy was a junior agent. Who, quite frankly, deserved a raise. Yes, he needed a raise. 

“Didn’t have much of a choice, though,” Eggsy continued, as if he hadn’t just verbally slapped Harry in the face without even meaning to. “There were a dozen of them and one of me and I only brought one clip. So dumpster it was.” A dozen. A dozen and he’s looking down the barrel of a gun at a woman with blonde hair and soft eyes and he can smell incense burning skin and his shoulder aches like someone’s just stabbed him and the slam of the pews on top of one another is like a heartbeat, thump thump thump thump thump.

“You prove your worth as a Kingsman every day,” Harry settled for, after a silence that had almost stretched too thin, the ghosts behind his eyes slowing his words and gripping his heart, his words magnanimous, meaningless. “Perhaps we should have some more training courses about ways to hide, though. To give you other options aside from dumpsters.” For the day Harry might not be there to tell him off about it. For the day when Harry was the one he had to hide from.

Eggsy gave him one of his open, brilliant smiles, blissfully ignorant of Harry shattering apart mere feet away from him. “I’d take them,” he said, and Harry felt the stranglehold on his ribs ease up slightly, the darkness pressing at his mind lifted, and he smiled in return.

“I shall speak to Merlin about it, then.”

 

 

There were parts of his day that Harry still wasn’t used to. How long it took him to shower and get dressed in the morning. How much sleep he now required to get through things that had used to be easy. The exhaustion that dogged his body at the end of the day, until he would be so bone-weary that he fell asleep in his suit more than once.

It got better, certainly. From the time he had been inducted as Arthur to the present, he had started being able to climb stairs again, his upper body strength was nearly back to what it had been before, especially on his right side. But it was the other things. The things that he had taken for granted as a part of his job, the parts of himself he had come to rely on.

“I’ll come with you,” Eggsy said, pushing out the front doors of HQ one wan Saturday morning in the late fall, a chill already sinking down off of the highlands. Harry looked up from where he was grimacing as he tried to get the laces on his damn trainers tied, and almost told Eggsy no. Told him to go jogging on his own. That he didn’t need to jog with Harry, to slow down for Harry, to be weak for Harry. 

But there was that look on Eggsy’s face, like Harry made the fucking sun come up in the morning, and he swallowed the words before he ever said them, put on his Arthur smile.

“Certainly. I would,” a beat, “Enjoy the company.” 

“Ace,” Eggsy replied, limbering up. He was so flexible, so young, that by the time Eggsy was stretched Harry was just about fixed to go, and he took some extra time stretching as well. The jog was part of his therapy—it had been getting longer and harder the past months. At first, it was just walk up and down the hallway outside of his office without his cane, and now it was jog a mile. Harry knew that was a significant step forward, knew that he had improved past the point anybody ever expected him to, but it still left him hating what he was like now—he’d been able to sprint a mile in less than five minutes before. Now, jogging one took almost an hour.

Jogging alongside Eggsy, the younger man bounding effortlessly and with the thoughtless energy of the very young, Harry just concentrated on his breathing and the one-two pound of his legs. His blood was beating loud in his ears, and he just ran the track. Ran the track. Listened to Eggsy talk, a stream of consciousness swirl of noise around his ears, while Harry bit the inside of his lip, ignored the mounting pain in his leg. Kept going. Kept going. Kept going.

Until he stepped odd, and he had a split-second moment of vertigo and collapsing, hollow-point fear, and with a high shout of pain his left leg went out from under him and Harry buckled forward, throwing out both his hands to catch him as he fell, palms scraping against the gravel of the path, badly skinned. He was breathing hard through his teeth, eyes wide, and there was lancing, shattering pain up and down his leg.

“Harry?!” Eggsy’s voice was shrill and thin with terror, and Harry tried to say something but nothing came out, his throat locked up and the panic from the thought that he’d lost his words was rushing and overwhelming, and he just tried to roll over and fell onto his back, gasping for breath, as the younger man leaned over him. “Harry, Harry, are you okay?” His green eyes were wide and worried, and Harry tried to speak, nothing coming out, his voice tight and gone and out came a choked noise, and Eggsy looked as scared as Harry felt.

He settled for just grabbing his left leg, trying to show what was wrong while he panted for breath, the spiking pain easing ever-so-slightly as he bent over, teeth still grit. Eggy’s warm hands were on his shoulder and his knee, and Harry just let Eggsy move him around, examine his leg, try to figure out what was wrong. He was focused entirely on trying to get his voice back, ignoring the pounding blood, the hazy pain.

“It’s nothing serious,” Eggsy said, at last, and Harry grunted. “Do you want to look?” The younger man glanced up at him, and Harry nodded jerkily and let Eggsy help him examine his leg. There were no breaks, nothing dislocated, and now that he was sitting down he could feel the pain dying off, a low hum instead of a scream. He hadn’t even torn a muscle, as far as he could tell.

“Harry,” Eggsy said quietly, once Harry’s sweats had been soaked through by the dew on the ground, and he was starting to move his leg. “I think your...”

“It collapsed.” Harry finally got out, each word a struggle. He pressed one hand over his face, over his missing eye, and the noise that came out between his grit teeth was halfway between a keen and a sob. “My fucking. It. Fuck. Collapsed.” He covered his good eye as well, tried to hide away, and felt Eggsy’s arms around his shoulders after a moment. 

“It’s fine,” Eggsy’s voice was low and quiet in his ears, his hands warm over Harry’s shoulders. “It’s fine, Harry. It’s just this time. Of course you’re going to have shit like this happen, y’know.. You’ll get through it.”

“I’m not.” Harry choked out, teeth clicking together. “I’m too young,” he whispered, good eye stinging. “For this. For my fucking. I was supposed to die in the field. I should have died at the church. Not. B-Become a.” His jaw worked, his throat clicking, tongue huge and cotton and lead, and he finally got out the word— “Broken.”

He broke down crying in Eggsy’s arms, face pressed into the side of the younger man’s neck, great wet sobs that shook his shoulders and made his chest and jaw ache, spitting invectives at himself the whole time, his left leg drawn up and into the cradle between their bodies, protecting it, protecting him.

Eggsy held him, and whispered nonsense words, and Harry thought about the gun and the church and the broken wreckage of a human being that he had become and wanted nothing more than silence and solitude and the death that should’ve been his, the death that he was robbed.

 

 

Harry Hart sat in his office, surrounded by walls plastered with old newspaper covers, and stared at the laptop that had remained shut since he’d moved back into his home, sitting in the middle of the desk, an expensive high-speed nigh-uncrackable paperweight. It wasn’t dusty, as he came in once a week and wiped his desk down, but it hadn’t been touched in a year and a half, since Harry had...

Since.

Shaking, he took a few deep breaths and closed his eye, squeezed it shut, and waited for the moment to pass before he opened his eye again, leaned forward, slammed the power cable into the side and opened the cover so fast he almost thought that it might make the wiring give out, making the impulsive decision to just fucking do it before he was too much of a coward to ever take the final step.

The screen was black, and a low-battery warning was pulsing, and the horrified, anguished scream that had settled in Harry’s throat, trapped behind his teeth, died out at the black blankness of the screen. He breathed, and watched as the low-battery warning slowly stopped flashing and his laptop rebooted.

Eggsy had just put it to sleep. He was surprised he had expected anything else, and paused to thank whatever had let his laptop survive almost two years with its last power-down in sleep mode, and just sat there. He felt tension-filled, a spring wound too-tight, a wire on the edge of losing its shape.

Was this really a good idea? _Really?_ The nightmare, the memories, the anguish that he hadn’t mentioned or put into words or told anyone about, the desperate bile that had spent weeks sitting at the top of the back of his throat, staining everything he ate and drank, that had been bad enough.

What would Merlin have done if he knew Harry was sitting here, watching, unmoving, as he waited for his laptop to power on and—

It powered on. The screen was dim for a moment, resetting itself, and Harry waited, his own quick and shallow anxious breathing the only sound in the room, and resisted closing his eyes, hiding from whatever was waiting for him, until the screen cleared and he found himself staring up at the sky.

Grey, thick roiling clouds filled the screen, the sky about to rain but still hanging on like it could somehow stave off the inevitable weather. There was blood flecking the image, and he reached out mechanically like he could wipe away the blood and bone marring the final still shot that had been recorded when Eggsy had slapped his laptop closed. And, because he hadn’t thought about it enough (of course, of _course_ he hadn’t) Harry had forgotten his old laptop was a touch screen.

The image began tracking backwards, rewinding with Harry’s touch, and the breath in his chest locked up and just...stopped. Dead. In his lungs. Like he was frozen.

First, it was the single-eye. Then it was tilting upward and the blood and viscera and he could see the gun and _Valentine_ and the gunshot was so loud that Harry startled and his breath started again, only it was high and panicked. He couldn’t look away, absolutely frozen, as he heard their words play in reverse, heard his own voice and he knew the words, he _knew_ them. He remembered saying them, he remembered—

The recording reached the beginning, and there was a horrible buzzing beating pulsing noise getting louder and louder, a single reverberating tone that his breathing timed with until—

He remembered the way the church floorboards sounded under his feet. He _remembers_ the way the church floorboards sound under his feet. The creak, muffled by the absolute dead silence. His breathing is ragged and irregular, and Merlin’s shouting in his ear and it just all feels...muffled, although that’s certainly partly the fault of the number of gunshots and grenade blasts that have left his ears ringing. 

The sheer number of dead people in the room astounds him. Almost forty years in the business, and what—this can still surprise him, when he’s done so much more? But it’s not the sheer numbers, or the carnage, it’s that he can look at bodies one by one and remember exactly what he did to all of the ones that were caused by his own actions.

He can feel the euphoria still, even though it’s dying off. It’s being replaced with something else entirely and there are no words to describe it. It started deep inside his chest, a horrible rotting feeling from just behind his sternum until it turned into bile in his throat that kept his mouth locked shut, words deserting him, and ended in his head, in a dull, muted, non-stop scream of anguish and horror and absolute mind-numbing fear and guilt.

And silence.

Harry found himself sitting at the dining room table. Or, well, the remains of it, anyway. His hands ached like he’d just punched something very hard, or done something very stupid, and judging from the fact that his dining room table was broken in half it was probably both of those things.

He sat there, in the chair that had formerly been at the head of the table, and without knowing it he re-enacted a scene that had taken place there almost two years prior, only this time it was Harry staring at his dead dog stuffed in the loo, and not Eggsy. The silence stretched on and thin, until he finally sighed and slumped in the chair slightly, ruining the perfect lines of his suit, sliding downward and rucking up the expensive wool.

“What am I supposed to do,” he asked Mr. Pickles, who said nothing in return, of course. “What’s wrong with me.” His hands were shaking and he stared at them before putting his face in his hands and sobbed, brokenly, once. “I’m a complete fucking monster,” he murmured, whole body trembling. “I wish—they’d all be better off if I’d just died the first time. We’d all be better. It would be better.” Harry would have put his gun to his head if he hadn’t already survived it once, would probably survive it again.

He sat in the chair until he had to get up, and the climb back up the stairs without his cane was slow and difficult. Halfway up he found his laptop smashed on the steps, and he sighed and pushed it aside with a toe before he continued upward, leaning heavily on the bannister as he dragged himself up the last few stairs. The upstairs hallway had glass shards all over the floor, and he stepped around the worst of it. Crystal tumblers, shattered beyond repair.

His office wasn’t much better. The lamp was sideways and smashed on the floor, the shade badly damaged. His desk was upside-down but fine, but the chair was thrown sideways and had come very close to breaking the window. Harry found his cane shoved under the curtains, and he took it and slowly started putting the room to rights, returning his chair to its proper place, placing his desk the right way up, and then he went around slowly and one by one picked up the once-immaculate _Sun_ covers and put them back on the wall. 

Most of them were still in one piece, if damaged from having their tacks ripped out, and he rebuilt the record of his life that way, and it felt like with each cover he put back up on the wall, something that had been missing from his body, like lost puzzle pieces, came back together.

He taped the last few covers that had been badly torn and returned them to their walls, and afterward stood in his silent office and just breathed for a while, held onto the top of his cane, and let it sit in him, the grief and the guilt and the regret and the monster, rising up out of his lungs, that just was waiting for the right moment to strike.

 

 

“I’m taking this mission,” Harry said, in his Arthur voice, which was no-nonsense, could chip steel, and made you reconsider telling him he had a stick about two feet up his arse. Merlin didn’t even look up from his desk.

He was immune, the bastard.

“No you aren’t,” Merlin replied to his tablet, and Harry slammed the door behind him with significantly more force than was necessary. “I’ve already passed it on to Bors.”

“No. Merlin, I’m doing this mission. You know you need me on it, and she’s too new.” Merlin didn’t move, aside from shaking his head very slightly. “Zeb,” Harry said, teeth grit.

Merlin froze.

“Zeb, let me go on the fucking mission, you prick. My hand-to-hand combat skills are the best in the organisation, and Bors is an explosives specialist. She’ll get herself hurt in there, and you need someone with my experience.” Merlin’s head didn’t move, his broad shoulders slumped slightly. 

“No, Harry,” his voice was very quiet. “I’m not sending you out there."

“And why the bloody hell not?” Harry shouted, his temper finally lost, weeks of stress and anger and fear bubbling up and exploding out all at once, a volcano losing its long-dormant peak. “I’m your superior, and you aren’t even a full member of this organisation! How _dare_ you fucking tell me that I’m not fit for field service when my scores are fine and with a brace I don’t have any difficulty with my leg.” _What about the gun to your temple Arthur what about that what about the woman you see in your dreams and the shattered laptop and the broken dining room table and_ “Are you going to insist on treating me like a child, like a liability, for the rest of my fucking life?” He was breathing hard—it was possibly the most he’d spoken at one time since he woke up, but the dam was broken and he couldn’t stop. It was tearing him apart—the anguish and the guilt over surviving something he deserved to die from, the exhaustion and the constant pain, the anger and the regret and the hate of _himself_ and his broken shattered crumbling ailing body. “Merlin, I earned my position on my own two damn feet and I won’t have you treating me like this when not only am I your boss I am _also_ our most senior agent! You’re going to get these children shot if you keep sending them out without experience! I demand to know why you’re so fucking hell-bent on treating me like an invalid!”

“Because you are one!” Merlin exploded, turning around, his whole face bright red and his hands shaking. “Because you are a fucking liability, Harry! You’re working with a shit leg, you’re blind on one side, and you’re never going to be the same you were before. Have you seen yourself lately? Just a fucking week ago you were in here swearing at yourself because you couldn’t think of the fucking word for a _tablet_! And that’s nothing about how afraid Eggsy is that you’re going to fucking off yourself!” Harry jerked back, as if struck. “Didn’t you notice he took all your guns? You’re cracking, Harry—you’re fifty-six, you got shot in the head, and you’re never going to be a field agent again and I don’t know why you won’t get it through your thick, stubborn head!”

“You’re being an arse!” Harry snapped back, near-spitting in fury. “You’d never treat a younger agent like this! You would never treat someone you had more than a working relationship with like this! How dare you say that to me I’m _fine_ —”

“None of our younger agents got shot in the head!” Merlin’s voice cracked when he screamed it. He pointed at his monitors, finger shaking. “None of them are my best damn friend! I didn’t watch any other agent kill forty people in three minutes and then walk out a door and get _shot_ in the _head_! And then you’ve spent the past two years fucking losing it bit by bit and you think I wouldn’t notice? Just going back out there and pretending you’re fine and everything is _fine_ isn’t going to fix you, Harry!”

“And why do you treat me like if I so much as go for a run it’s going to happen again? How do _you_ know it won’t fix it?” Harry snarled, taking a step forward, pointing a finger accusatorially at the other man’s chest, clutching onto his cane so hard his knuckles were white. “I’m fit for fieldwork and I’m overruling you!”

“Fine!” Merlin shouted, throwing his hands in the air. “Fine, go get your fucking dumb arse shot when you have a flashback in the middle of a gunfight! See how much I fucking care, when I have to go pick your dead body out of a fucking morgue! I hope you’ll rest easy, knowing the look on Eggsy’s face when he watched you get shot, the fact that he had nothing but nightmares until he found you half-dead in a fucking hospital bed! What, do you want to do that again?” Merlin was breathing hard, and he stepped forward the rest of the way to grab Harry’s lapels and shake him, hard, once. “Or, when some poor fucking agent goes out there to save your sorry arse _you’ll_ be the one who gets to sit down in a hospital room and realise that you’re going to have to pull the plug on your best friend, rather than leave him alive as a fucking vegetable! Know it’s better for him to be dead than for him to spend the rest of his life breathing with a machine and eating through a tube! So go right ahead, _Arthur_ , overrule me, put yourself back in the field, get yourself shot, see how much I fucking care! We all know it’s all you fucking want for yourself, don’t think I haven’t fucking noticed! I don’t give two shits what you do any more, since you’re clearly still a reckless bastard!”

They stared at each other in dead silence and the words Harry wanted to say never made it past his lips. _How did you know_ were first and foremost and then _I see the church in my dreams and you don’t know I see it and Merlin I should have died there_ and then Harry turned around and slammed back out of the room without a word, panting, fingers clutching the top of his cane, a pulsing pounding behind his eyes, shaking all over.

He walked, walked until he couldn’t walk anymore, and ended up collapsed on a stump two miles from the main building, his cane tossed on the foliage at his feet, his face pressed into his hands and his shoulders shaking with bottled up sobs.

 

 

The worst migraine that Harry had since he’d woken up hit on the two-year anniversary of when he was shot. It started off as a low throbbing behind his left eye, and by the time Harry had turned off _Baking With The Stars_ and stood up to go get some painkillers, it had suddenly morphed and twisted into a screaming wreck tearing his entire head apart.

He made it to the downstairs loo and threw up into the toilet, clutching the porcelain edges of the bowl and heaving, shaking, sweating his way through it until the screaming train was accompanied by blasts of light and the low thudding pulse of an over-blasted bass, spots of light flashing behind his eyelids and bright auras coating everything he could see and Harry only managed to say, “Sorry,” slurred and slow to Mr. Pickle before he fell unconscious, passing out and sliding to the floor, darkness taking his vision. The slide from reality was accompanied by a burning brand, tearing his skull apart piece by piece by piece with the screaming sound of wreckage even as he fell into silence and stillness.

He woke up, in near-total darkness, to warm hands cupping the back of his neck and his head, rolling him over. “Harry?” Eggsy’s voice was low and worried, panicked. “Harry, Harry, wake up. Harry, please.” His voice cracked. “Harry, please, no, you can’t do this.” The motion made his head jar, and a noise broke out of Harry’s mouth that sounded suspiciously like a sob and petered off into a high, keening whine. “Harry?” Eggsy was quieter this time, a whisper, hope and faith and desperation coating his voice. “Harry, can you hear me? Please, Harry. Say something.” His fingers, pressed against the skin of Harry’s neck, were trembling slightly in time with his pulse. 

“Please,” Harry slurred, his voice a murmur that he still couldn’t articulate right, “Quiet.” Eggsy froze against him, and he could year the younger man breathing fast and worried, and then Eggsy squeezed the back of his neck reassuringly. The sigh of relief he gave was so loud, so desperate, that it made Harry’s head spin more than it already was.

“What’s wrong?” his voice was no louder than Harry’s had been, but it still felt like someone was pounding on his eardrums with each word, fingers stroking just behind his ear. 

“Head,” Harry managed, after a long moment of struggle to get his tongue to wrap around the sounds to force out the word. Eggsy moved his hand slowly over his face, touching different places until his fingers reached just above Harry’s missing eye, right at the top left corner where the orbital had shattered, and the gentle pressure made Harry whimper in pain—a sound he never thought he would make, ever, in his life. He had never made that noise even when he had been tortured, and he had been tortured plenty of times.

“How bad?” Eggsy asked, knocking him out of his reverie before he could lose track of himself and lose more time, and he took Harry’s hand in his. “Tap your fingers against my wrist for the number.” The amount of time, the amount of _effort_ it took for Harry to do something that simple was horrifying, was exhausting. He hated it, but by the time he managed to tap nine times Eggsy was making little broken noises and he finally said, his voice like ice, like ramrod steel, like blood and cordite, “I killed him too fast.”

Eggsy didn’t have to say who.

Harry knew.

“Merlin’s been trying to reach you for two hours,” Eggsy murmured, voice still shaky, and then quietly added, “Harry, we didn’t know where you was. We thought—you’d.” He didn’t finish the statement. He didn’t have to. They both knew what he meant. Harry just remained limp in his arms, let Eggsy move him as he had to, not able to reply or even to reassure the younger man because he _might_ have. It was a slow, painful effort to sit up, but fortunately, Eggsy didn’t even have to ask.

There was no way Harry could stand, so Eggsy just grunted in effort and picked him up, one hand around the small of Harry’s back and the other under his knees, and Harry slumped over, face buried in the younger man’s neck, making a broken noise again as he jarred his head, his glasses sliding off and landing on his lap. “You’re bloody heavy,” Eggsy said, teeth-grit and breathless. Harry managed a quiet chuckle in response and lay heavy, deadweight in the other man’s arms. Eggsy grunted, before he carefully navigated out of the bathroom and up the stairs. It was tight, because Harry was four inches taller than him and presently completely boneless, but they managed it somehow, and Harry flickered in and out of consciousness until Eggsy eased him down onto his bed. 

The cool satin of the duvet cover was possibly the best thing that Harry had ever felt, and he moaned very quietly as it touched his face, breathtakingly cold against his fevered skin, his good eye falling shut. “Harry, let me get your patch,” Eggsy said, and Harry whined something that could have been “No,” in response, because he didn’t want Eggsy to see it, didn’t want him to have to feel that anguish, but it was hard to tell if he’d said it, and Eggsy ignored him anyway, pulling the patch off. The satin was cool there as well, and it lowered the pulsing in his head, and Harry sighed, relaxed, shoulders easing up slightly. “Stay there,” Eggsy whispered, helping Harry lay out flat, pulling off his belt and sliding off his slacks. “I’ll go get you something to take.” 

“I’m fine,” Harry said, but it was lost in his duvet, and wouldn’t have stopped Eggsy anyway, because he had his mind set on something. Harry floated in and out of consciousness again, fingers curled in the duvet, falling into sleep this time, the cool cloth and the comfortable bed changing the screaming freight train of his headache into just the rumbling thunder of the underground. In the endless, limitless time that was a deep migraine, Eggsy came and went several times, helped him sit up, poured water down his throat and made him swallow pills, undressed him the rest of the way, tucked him into bed. And, at some point as he napped and slipped in and out of consciousness, Harry’s migraine receded enough that it was just thumping bass again, and he realised Eggsy was sitting there, crouched on his bed next to Harry and, judging from the glow behind his closed eyelids, was on his phone.

“Time?” Harry slurred, trying to avoid moving his face. He felt Eggsy shift.

“Half past midnight,” Eggsy replied, moving closer so that he could keep whispering. “Need anythin'?”

“Water,” Harry murmured, and then added, “Toast.” Eggsy made a noise of agreement, and then leaned forward and just for a split-second—kissed Harry’s sweaty forehead. He squeezed Harry’s hand, but didn’t move quite yet.

“'arry...” Eggsy said at last, still holding his hand. “You. Merlin. We was both so scared when you didn’t check in. I thought you might’ve—“

“The church,” Harry forced himself to slur, pressing his thumb against Eggsy’s knuckles as best he could. “I remember.” The younger man went very quiet, and then murmured,

“Oh.” The moment of horrible, hushed realisation. They hadn’t known he had known. Harry wished that he still didn’t know.

“I should’ve died there,” he managed at last, taking his time to gear up to say the words. “With them. I shouldn’t live while good people are dead.” He paused, wet his lips slightly. “I was meant to die.”

“No,” Eggsy said, leaning forward to press their foreheads together, holding both Harry’s hands now. “No, Harry, no, that’s not true at _all_. Should me and Merlin off ourselves for all the people he killed when he blew up the implants, or all the people what died because I didn’t kill Valentine fast enough? No, Harry. No, of course not.” Eggsy smoothed one hand over Harry’s face and at the touch Harry sobbed, once, and then slowly broke down into long, silent, disgusting tears. The kind where his nose ran and his face screwed up and his spit bubbled and his body curled up but Eggsy didn’t care, Eggsy had never cared. “'arry, they didn’t die because of you. They died because Richmond Valentine was fuckin' nutter, and because this world is shite and because he decided to use _you_ as his fucking nuclear bomb. 'arry, 'arry, please. They didn’t die because of you and you aren’t meant to be dead and Harry if you killed yourself _I’d_ die, Harry, I’d just fuckin' die.” Eggsy sobbed, and the sound ripped something horrible inside Harry’s chest and scraped the back of his throat raw.

“Dyin' ain’t the solution, Harry. It’s not, it never fuckin' was. If you die, who'll remember them? Who’ll remember Lancelot and Arthur before he went bad, who’ll remember me dad? Harry, you have to live for them, you have to live for _yourself_ , you have to live for us.” Eggsy pressed their cheeks together, shifted until he had his arms wrapped up around Harry’s shoulders and back and pulled him close until Harry could cry into his shoulder, fingers trying to weakly hold onto him.

“Please, Harry. You’re so damn brave. I’m just as scared as you are but I’d’ve given up so fucking long ago if you weren’t here. I couldn’t do what you are, Harry. I’d just. I’d. Please, Harry.” The wet anguish in his voice made Harry start crying again, and he nodded, nodded repeatedly, nodded until his head was spinning again. “Please don’t die.”

“I won’t,” he promised, leaving wet spit marks on Eggsy’s shoulder. “I won’t. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.” They rocked together, two men lost in a storm, lost in each other, with the darkness and the ghosts at bay, but for once they weren’t screaming until Harry couldn’t hear anything else and he wanted them to stop to make them stop to _make it stop_ —

And, because he couldn’t bear to not say it, Harry added, “Stay.”

Eggsy stayed.

 

 

Somewhere on the outskirts of Islamabad, being chased by three gunmen and bleeding heavily from a gash to his thigh, Galahad’s glasses went flying off his face, hit the ground, and shattered.

And, for the first time in two months, Arthur stood up, took a deep breath, and walked to Merlin’s office. Hesitated. And pushed the door open.

The other man looked up from where he was staring at his tablet, and for a long moment they didn’t say anything to each other, and then Merlin sighed. “You want a seat?”

“Please,” Harry admitted, hating that standing for long left him aching afterwards, and came over to sink into Merlin’s extra seat. They stared, together, at the screen for Galahad that was now blank. Neither of them said anything, the silence stretching long and thin, until Harry finally asked, “Is he still on the radar?”

“He’s still moving,” Merlin replied, stretching out his hand for Harry to take the tablet—indeed, Galahad was still moving, and quite quickly. “So he’s likely alive.” Harry didn’t say anything, just remained quiet, and looked at the tablet. He could hear Merlin breathing, even and patient.

“I’ve been a right wanker,” Harry said at last. Merlin snorted. “Don’t do that,” Harry looked over at him, frowning. “I’m working up to something here.”

“Right, sorry, don’t let me step on your toes—lord knows you can’t handle not getting it right the first time, you prat.” Harry kicked him good-naturedly in the ankle, but continued anyway.

“I was saying I’ve been a right bloody wanker to everyone. Merlin...you saved my life, and you and Eggsy suffered. So much for me.” And he’d wanted to throw that, all that, away. His throat felt tight, and for once, not with his words slipping away from him. “You’ve done nothing but care for me since I woke up, and all I’ve done in return is lash out at you and demand more from him, and it’s just...not bloody right.” Harry looked up at him, met Merlin’s grey eyes, and found the other man was smiling at him.

“Harry...nobody expected you to just get _better_ , me included. Valentine said it himself: this isn’t that kind of movie. You survived, which is a miracle, and you’ll keep getting better. You’ll keep recovering. But there are so many reasons you need to be here, running Kingsman, acting as a handler for our agents in the field, and part of that is because you’re our most senior agent, and yeah, part of it is because you’re not the same man, Harry, and you can’t be. You know so much that Galahad and the others _don’t_ know, things that even I can’t tell them. You’ve been in all their situations, and you know how to get out. I think you should handle more missions, talk them through their steps. Harry, you’re one of the best agents Kingsman has ever had.” Merlin paused. “That’s why I don’t think you should go in the field, even if you were—yourself. Again. If you die, we’re down my friend and an Arthur, but more importantly, we’re down our senior agent. Our best agent.” Merlin reached out, put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You’re a brave, but stupid, man, Harry. Don’t go getting yourself shot for no good reason.”

“I know that,” Harry replied, honest. “But even if it is true, I can’t just be in here, Merlin. I think I might lose my mind, and what’s worse, it makes me feel an invalid. I’ll...I’ll never. Be the same as I was before.” It hurt like hell to say it, hurt like a stab to the chest. He hadn’t admitted it. Not once. Not before then. “But I’m losing my bloody mind, Merlin.”

The two men were quiet, and Merlin finally nodded.

“With other agents. And close to home. And myself and Eggsy on call, and only if you pass a psych eval. And nothing extremely dangerous. And not long-term, because your body can’t handle it. And not if you’re having any bad health.” Merlin kept going, his brogue stern, and Harry found himself fighting back a smile.

“Yes,” he interrupted. “I get it. You have made yourself abundantly clear. I completely understand. I must go out in my bubble on a leash and I am not to come back with so much as a scrape.”

“There’s a good lad,” Merlin was grinning at him, and for a moment Eggsy being without contact and Harry’s broken body were forgotten and they were all right again.

His phone buzzed, and Harry hesitated before he passed over the tablet to Merlin and pulled out his cell, checking it to see a snapchat from Eggsy. Swiping through and unlocking his phone, a moment later he saw Eggsy’s grinning face from—

“Oh my god,” Harry’s voice was choked off at the end. Merlin leaned over, quickly, to see it before it was gone.

He was inside the cargo hold of a plane, and the snapchat had, written on it, “First class seats.”

Harry laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

 

 

The next time Galahad went off of radar, it wasn’t funny. There was no laughter, there were no jokes. There was just the rapid retorts of several gunshots, Eggy’s shout of pain, a moment of blood all over the vision of the glasses and then falling, falling, his glasses shattering, and dead silence broken only by static. “Galahad,” Harry said, fingers white-knuckled on the edge of Merlin’s desk. “Galahad. Galahad, respond. Eggsy, are you all right?” He was breathing fast, too fast. “Eggsy. Galahad. Eggsy!”

Nothing.

Harry belatedly realised he was shouting—he only belatedly realised it because he was alone, and the sound of his voice echoing back off of the walls of Merlin’s office was loud in the dead silence. HQ was empty—almost all their agents were out on missions, plus Lancelot in medbay, and Merlin had gone home for his enforced once-weekly night of rest in his own damn bed. Which meant Harry was completely alone.

“Eggsy?” He tried, once more, voice very quiet. There was no response except for the crackle of static, and Harry sat there for a moment longer before he got up and limped over to the cabinet on the other side of the room, poured himself a scotch, drank it all in one go, and then took a few long, slow breaths.

Eggsy was their best active agent in the field—reckless, but _brilliant_ , just like Harry had expected him to be. Just like Harry himself had been, at Eggsy’s age. He would be fine. His glasses hadn’t been shot, just knocked off. Harry poured himself another scotch, knocked it back just as fast, and closed his eye. For a long moment, he breathed through his teeth, hands clenching on the glass.

Harry threw the tumbler and it shattered against the bulletproof glass over the hanger into an innumerable amount of pieces, and he stared after it, shaking, panting, for a long moment, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

At then he went to work.

Pulled up maps. _Eggsy was brilliant._ Plotted the best course for Eggsy to take, knew he would take it, quick on his feet as always (the gorgeous thing). _Eggsy was intuitive._ Started setting up a med evac team on red alert. _Eggsy was wearing a bulletproof suit._ He put out a call for immediate extraction, checked his phone every five minutes for a text, a call, anything. _Eggsy has survived worse than this and you know it._ Minutes turned to hours and then Harry felt a hand on the back of his neck.

“Harry,” Merlin’s voice, low brogue, tired. “Harry, how long have you been here?”

Harry realised, belatedly, that he was sitting perfectly still at the other man’s desk, staring blindly at a black tablet screen.

“I don’t...know,” he said, after a moment. His voice was shaking slightly. “I was...I was trying to call an evac team...” He moved, sluggishly, shaking the dust from his eyes. How long had he lost? What was even going on?

“Morgana called me,” Merlin nudged Harry up and out of his chair. “She said Galahad lost contact and you panicked.” Merlin jabbed him in the chest, scowling. “Next time, you fucking call me, mate.” Harry rubbed the side of his face.

“I...thought I had called you.” Everything was hazy, except for the overwhelming, mind-shattering worry for Eggsy. “Had I not?”

Merlin stared at him. Neither of the men said anything, neither of them wanted to touch on the unspoken words, on the unspoken horror and anguish hiding right there in plain sight under Harry’s horror-filled realisation. “Harry,” Merlin started to say, when a long buzz, like a swarm of bees, sounded from one of his blacked-out monitors, and a moment later they all woke immediately, flashing to a small map of Cairo.

The buzzing was coming from a blinking red dot, and Merlin bared his teeth. “That’s the safehouse. Nobody there, but that’s the alarm that someone with a non-approved cell signal has prepped it.” He sat down, swivelling his chair around, and Harry realised abruptly that Merlin had come in without waxing his head—there was fuzz all around the lower half of his face, and he wondered just how bad he had to have been, sitting there motionless, completely out, but still awake, for Morgana to drag Merlin in like this.

“I’m sending Lancelot. She’ll be fine with that broken wrist,” Merlin was saying, but Harry was already pivoting, scrubbing his face with his hands, rubbing his eyes. Waking up. Coming back to himself.

“No,” Harry snapped, and Merlin looked up at him. “I’m going.”

“Arthur—“ Merlin began, patient, and then completely lost what little semblance of control he had, “You just fucking zoned out for what, two hours? Morgana slapped you and you didn’t even fucking feel it and you want me to put you,” he pointed at Harry, “On a plane,” he pointed at the hangar, “And send you into live combat when you can’t even _fucking stay conscious?_ ”

Harry grit his teeth, narrowed his eyes. He felt something in him.

For so long, now. For _two years_ he had felt a low, burning zone of apathy, of distaste, of lack of care. He’d wanted to die, he’d wanted to run away, to shut off, to shut _down_. He hadn’t felt anything, it seemed like, except exhaustion and anguish and the horror and hatred he had for his body that wasn’t his any more. He couldn’t bring himself to push forward when he was going to spend the entire rest of his life being held back, by his shit leg, by his missing eye, by his shaky mind and his missing words. He had given up on being Harry Hart. He had become Harry-Hart-As-Arthur, who was stubborn but mindless, lost in a deep haze of depression and disgust with surviving.

He had meant to die in combat, in a blaze of glory. Literally. Instead, he was going to grow old, waste away like a fucking invalid, all-but-confined to bed. He was going to never be able to shoot right again. He would have migraines that collapsed his brain and his body. His leg was going to give out when he ran.

But there was something in Harry there hadn’t been in so long. Something that was snapping like a livewire, burning like a firecracker, and Harry drew himself to his full height.

He didn’t have his cane. He didn’t even _notice_. Merlin stared at him, and something happened to the other man’s face, some twist, some shift, and his eyes lit up.

“If you do not let me get on that plane,” Harry growled, voice low and cold and absolutely deadly, “I am going to either pistol whip you and steal it while you’re unconscious, or I’m going to fire you. Take your bloody pick.”

Merlin’s expression shifted, morphed, and twisted until he was smiling at Harry—no, _grinning_. He raised his eyebrows, the amusement shifting into absolute beatific joy and revelation, and Merlin finally managed to say, to Harry’s bemused, twisted expression:

“That’s the first time in two years you’ve sounded like yourself.” And Harry felt a chill down his spine, he hadn’t even _noticed_ he’d been off.

“Eggsy’s my damn boy,” Harry said quietly, hands shaking. “You’d keep me away from him over my dead fucking body. If that’s him, I plan to be there to get him home in one piece, and if it’s _not_ him, I plan to meet whoever it is and take them apart piece by fucking piece until I find out where he is.” Merlin was still staring at him in some potent mix of fear and awe, and he just nodded.

“Yes, sir.” For the first time since Harry had become Arthur, he could believe the fear and respect in that single word. “Get suited up, sir. We’ll get you in the air.”

Harry left, and he left with a light step and a pounding in his chest that wasn’t out of fear but out of adrenaline, out of the rush, out of anger and strength.

He didn’t falter.

His leg didn’t ache.

 

 

Harry landed in Cairo three hours later, and if he didn’t sprint off of the plane, it was a damn near thing. He was in a light linen suit of pale cream, wearing his thickest, darkest pair of sunglasses to protect the vision on his good eye and to stave off any sudden headache surprises. He had left his eyepatch behind, because that was a surefire way to reveal his identity: how many trained to kill men with missing eyes were there in the world?

Probably at least a dozen, but Harry didn’t trust it. He just had one lens completely blacked out.

He had two pistols, eight clips, his umbrella, two knives, one pen, the blade in the sole of his shoe, three grenades, his ring, and the force of vengeance of a dozen men. His feet touched Egyptian soil and he took one, deep breath.

Looked back at the plane.

And started moving.

The safehouse was in southeast Cairo, not all that far from the airport, and Harry set out immediately, hailing a cab outside and taking it to three blocks away from the apartment. He intended to work his way closer and closer to the safehouse, canvassing each block, making sure it was secure before he moved on, only to be stopped before he could even start by Merlin’s voice in his ear.

“The safehouse has been breached, Arthur. Get there immediately.” And just like that Harry’s plans were out the window. He was moving, running, ignoring the burning ache of overused muscles that quickly turned into soreness, and kept his left side pinned against a building at all times as he sprinted around streetcorners and then came to a halt a block down from the safehouse. He walked, quickly, focused on his blank-screened phone like he was a tourist, trying to find his stop, until he stepped out of sight and into the alleyway next to the building that their safe apartment was in.

“Third window, second floor,” Merlin’s voice said, and Harry jumped, skidded up the wall, and grabbed onto the bottom of the fire escape. There was a moment where he wasn’t sure if his body could handle it and then he had hauled himself up and onto the grating, and scrambled to the second floor.

He didn’t even bother with trying to not make a scene. He just twisted his umbrella and slammed the tip, which was high-grade carbon steel and could pierce a man’s chest like the human body was just warm butter, into the glass.

It shattered. Harry went in right afterward, and rolled to a landing on the stairs. It was dead silent inside the building and he started moving as quickly as he could, checking around curves in the stairwell, umbrella in one hand and primed to open with his pistol in the other. “Fourth floor,” Merlin murmured, voice tight, and Harry was up the stairs, completely focused on his movements, on the sounds of the world around him. On the third storey there was still nobody there, but he was on-edge, shaking. Who had broken in—had they tracked Eggsy? Was Kingsman compromised? _Where was his boy?_

On the fourth floor, Harry looked down the hall and Merlin’s voice said, “405,” and Harry was moving, turning until he was facing the apartment door and found it—

Half open.

He slowed to a halt, frozen on the linoleum of the apartment building, and carefully slung his umbrella over his shoulder before he moved forward, feet silent on the tile. There was no motion inside, no noise to alert him, and all Harry could hear was his own breathing in tandem with Merlin’s rapid, worried breath in his ear.

He reached the apartment door, and slowly nudged it open with his foot. It swung the rest of the way and he slid through, still silent, glad for the well-oiled hinges, and turned to face left—an empty kitchen and loo—and right, to—

Eggsy, sprawled in only his pants on the sofa, covered in blood and staring at Harry with his own pistol shaking in his hand. For a moment longer the two men stared at each other, and then Harry’s voice came out in a broken noise, “Eggsy,” and he was slamming the door shut, throwing the bolt, dropping his umbrella, and sliding his pistol back into its holster all in one shaking motion as he crossed the room, almost stumbled, to the younger man’s side.

Eggsy had already dropped his gun. He was pale, and stared at Harry with bright eyes. “'arry?” His voice was very, very quiet. “Why’re you 'ere?”

“Oh, my dear boy—“ Harry wasn’t even listening to himself, too busy stripping out of his coat and wrenching his sleeves up, rolling them past his elbows, while Eggsy stared at him, hazy.

“Jesus Christ,” Merlin’s voice whispered in his ear. “I’ll get a med evac team there immediately.”

“Please,” Harry replied, voice shaking, as he dragged over the small coffee table and sat down on it, anchoring himself. Eggsy was just staring at him, shaking slightly.

“Are you real?” He asked, and Harry nodded fitfully, reaching out to peel Eggsy’s hand back from where it was pressing a cloth onto his shoulder—a cloth that Harry recognised as having once been his shirt, now stained mostly crimson. It was perhaps a sign of how badly shaken that he didn’t even think about the expense of a Turnbull and Asser shirt being used as a tourniquet.

“I’m real, and I’m here. You’re going to be fine, my dear boy. Just hang on.” Harry smoothed his hand over Eggys’s face, and the younger man made a quiet broken noise at the touch, and closed his eyes. “Stay conscious with me, Eggsy. Don’t fall asleep.” Eggsy made a whimpering noise that left Harry’s heart aching and clenching in his chest. “Eggsy, please. I need you to talk to me. Talk to me about anything. Just stay awake.”

“He’s—fuck, AB-.” Merlin’s voice said in his ear. “He’s going to have to wait until the evac gets there.”

“He’s going to bleed out before they even dispatch,” Harry snapped back, rucking up the leg of his slacks one-handed while he twisted his tie off and knotted it around his thigh, tying it as a tourniquet. “I’m O-. It’s either I do this or he dies.” Unspoken, the fact that Harry would give up anything, everything, to make sure Eggsy never died, not on his watch.

“Harry—“ Merlin said, and Harry ignored him, as he opened the first aid kit that Eggsy had managed to pull out and grabbed the IV from within it, twisted it around until he could jam one end of the butterfly needle into Eggsy’s radial artery, ignoring Eggsy’s gasp of surprise, before he pushed all air out of the tube and stretched out his own leg and did the exact same into his femoral artery. For a moment, Harry gasped, and then closed his eyes, breathed through it. Then, to make sure it drained right, he lifted his leg up and propped it on the edge of the couch, above Eggsy’s wrist, dangling off the edge of the cushions.

“Holy 'ell,” Eggsy said, quietly. “'arry—“

“I need my hands free for this,” Harry replied. “Just stay with me, Eggsy. Come on.” He could hear Merlin in his glasses feed, shouting at a med evac team, and Harry resolutely ignored them while he pulled out the medical tweezers from within the kit. “Were you hit anywhere else?” Harry could see two obvious bullet injuries—one in Eggsy’s calf that he had used his tie as a tourniquet for, and the other on his shoulder that his shirt had been pressed to.

“Tha’s all,” Eggsy murmured. “Calf exi'ed, shoulder still in.” He smiled, wet and wan. “Me ‘ands’r too fucking shaky, I couldn’t ge’ i’ out.”

“Don’t worry.” Harry smiled. “That’s what I’m here for. Focus on me.” He leaned forward, pushed Eggsy’s shoulder down, and hovered over the younger man, picking up his phone and flicking on the flashlight to shine in and give him a good view. “Nice and easy, Eggsy. There it is.” The bullet had lodged in the meat of the muscle, fortunately not hitting any bones, and Harry got it out quickly enough, and then blindly grabbed a needle and suturing thread.

“Breathe,” Harry instructed, and Eggsy did it without any hesitation as Harry with quick, steady fingers stitched his shoulder shut, stopping the bleeding, before he pulled out bandages and quickly tied them on around Eggsy’s shoulder to catch any more blood and to put pressure on the new stitching. “Calf next,” he murmured, still half-listening to Merlin barking in the background, and turned to start working, quickly stitching the entry and exit wounds shut. “Eggsy, talk to me. I need you to stay conscious. Say something, anything.”

“I used to ‘ave these nightmares,” Eggsy began speaking without any more prompting, his voice quiet and high as he breathed, wheezing, through his teeth, whole body tense and on edge as he held perfectly still and let Harry piece him back together. “These ‘orrible fucking nightmares that you was never gonna wake up. That we wen' all the way over there and you was goin' to be in that hospital bed, forever.” Harry paused for a moment, his hands shaking, until he breathed and they stilled again.

No surgeon worth his fucking salt had hands that shook even the slightest, and Harry Hart was a surgeon worth _far more_ than his salt. He just kept stitching, hands steady and fingers even, as he closed up the wounds on Eggsy’s body.

“I would imagine you was awake and there with me,” Eggsy was babbling, his voice cracking and getting wetter and more hysterical with every word, and Harry just listened, because every soft, shaky word was a sign the younger man was still with him. “I’m sorry I broke into your ‘ouse, ‘arry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry but I couldn’t fuckin' live wivout you,” he was sobbing, Harry noted, distantly, while he twisted the younger man’s leg around and winced at the exit wound. It wasn’t that big, which was a relief. Small enough that Harry could still stitch it shut. “Sometimes I wished you’d jes' died at the church and that Merlin wasn’ goin' to have to kill you and spend the rest of his life blamin' himself for not being able to make you be'er. 'arry, please don’t die, please don’t.”

“I’m here,” Harry whispered, reaching up to touch Eggsy’s face. He was getting tired—he couldn’t give Eggsy much more blood without possibly risking his mental clarity in that he really needed to be completely in control for this situation. He reached down, and pinched shut the tube for the moment, stitching shut a long gash on Eggsy’s chest one-handed, following it over his ribs. “I’m here and I’m fine, Eggsy. I promised you; I always will be.”

“Please don’ die, ‘arry,” Eggsy whispered, one hand clenched white-knuckled tight around Harry’s wrist as he stitched shut the gash on Eggsy’s chest. “Please don’ die again.”

“I won’t,” Harry promised, as he ran his hand over the younger man’s chest, pressed his fingers to the fluttering pulse at his throat, stared into his hazy green eyes. “Never again, Eggsy. I’ll always be here.” And he meant it, with every bone in his body. Eggsy had been right. Harry had to live, to remember, to fulfil his promises, to earn back what he had done in that church in Kentucky. Eggsy stared at him, and Harry let go of the IV, let his blood flow back into Eggsy’s body again. Eggsy was crying, slow drips of tears over his blood- and shrapnel-speckled face. “For the rest of my life, Eggsy.” Harry smiled, squeezed his hand. “My dear boy, I will never leave you. I promise.”

The younger man wrapped his fingers around Harry’s wrist, and whispered, “I love you,” his voice shaking, his eyes wide and wet.

Harry held back onto his hand, and, with the realisation of a man facing something that’s loomed over him for months and at last has felt the blade drop, and can no longer hide, replied,

“I know.”

 

 

Eggsy Unwin woke up three days later in the Kingsman infirmary to find Harry Hart smiling at him, exhausted, from the chair next to his bed.

“How’d you know I was gonna wake up?” Eggsy asked, voice quiet and hoarse, and Harry’s smile widened.

“I didn’t,” at least he was honest. “I’ve been sitting here staring at you and smiling for the past three days just waiting for you to wake up. And because I’m very, very proud of you.” Eggsy’s heart felt tight, and he managed to force his mouth to twitch up on the sides.

“You are?” He asked. “What happened?” Harry froze for a moment, and then his brows furrowed.

“You don’t remember?” Eggsy shook his head.

“Nothin’ after you busted in.” Harry nodded, after a moment. “What happened?”

“You’d lost a lot of blood. I gave you a transfusion and stitched up all your injuries so you wouldn’t bleed out. They did a bit of surgery on your shoulder once you were back on base, but otherwise you’ve been perfectly stable.” Harry paused. “You’ll make a full recovery. Merlin wants your debrief as soon as you’re feeling up to it.” There was something behind his eyes that to Eggsy looked off. Looked _wrong_.

“I’m sorry,” Eggsy whispered, and he didn’t know why.

Harry smiled, and he was crying.

“It’s quite all right, my dear boy.” 

Eggsy felt something was missing, some great yawning chasm that was swallowed up by Harry’s smiles and tears and left hanging between them like a great swinging axe. It hung, silent and heavy over them—and for the life of him, he didn’t know what it was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check me out on tumblr [@professorjonathanphaedrus](http://professorjonathanphaedrus.tumblr.com/)


	3. i know that your heart is still beating, beating darling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or, the one where harry hart falls madly in love)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lovelyheart is a tiny perfect beautiful gift of a beta/britpick and god bless her
> 
> also I SWEAR TO GOD, EVERY TIME I EDIT THESE CHAPTERS, THEY GET LONGER, THIS GAINED LIKE 3K+ HELP ME
> 
> i hope youre enjoying this trainwreck rollercoaster ride; we're almost at the end
> 
> as always, please note the tag and rating update! IM SO SORRY THEY STILL HAVENT ACTUALLY DONE IT...but it will happen. I Promise.

* * *

_'cause i have been where you are before_   
_and i have felt the pain of losing who you_   
_and i have died so many times, but I am still alive_

_(i believe, christina perri)_

 

 _He said he loved me_ , read the text on Merlin’s phone, at half-past four in the morning, and he looked accusatorially at the offending piece of technology and briefly debated tossing it at the wall. The third time in as many weeks, and always on his one bloody night at home. From half under her pillow, Roxy made the coffee grinder noise, and Merlin scowled and texted back,

 _Yes. Y you still on abt it?_ His phone sat there for a moment, a large ellipsis on the bottom of the screen showing that Harry was typing, and Merlin scowled.

He was so glad he’d changed Harry’s appearance name to Poncy Git. It made shite like this bearable.

_Well, he’s forgotten he ever said it which I suppose is due to blood loss, but I don’t have the heart to bring it up again, because I am quite worried I love the dear boy and really, I’m far too old for him, not to mention half a dozen other reasons it’s a completely terrible idea. I don’t want to feel guilt for loving him or not telling him that he said it, as he should be aware of such a confession, but it’s not my place_

Merlin typed _Go the fuck to sleep_ into the middle of the other man’s tirade and then locked his phone, and threw it underhand so that it slid across the bedroom carpet and thunked, quietly, into bottom of the dresser.

“M’Hrry again?” Roxy mumbled into the bedspread, unusually eloquent, and Merlin groaned, pressed a hand over his eyes, pulled his pillow over his head, and finally said,

“Yes.” 

Roxy groaned and rolled over to press against his side, one arm thrown across his chest. “Eggsy won’t shut up about him either.” The way she said it, though, had basically no vowels, and came out a lot more like _Ggs wn st p bt m eth_ , but Merlin got the point regardless. “We need to do something.” _Nd t d st._

“Does Eggsy really not remember?” A grunt, in confirmation. “Maybe they just need a chance to work it out.”

Roxy mumbled something that was probably rude that he didn’t catch, and then elbowed him in the side. Merlin took it as the dismissal of the conversation that it was meant to be, and went back to sleep, his mind sluggishly clicking over thoughts and ideas, trying to find something that he could use, something that he could do, to deal with the two idiots. 

He already had an idea.

 

 

Two weeks later, when Eggsy was cleared to go back out into the field if he took it easy post his injuries from Cairo, Merlin tapped his fingers against the top of his clipboard and stared down Arthur and Galahad in his office. It was remarkable, how much Eggsy looked like his mentor sometimes—he had Harry’s hair coif perfectly, and frankly, if it hadn’t been _endearing_ that Harry had commissioned a near-identical navy suit for the younger man, it would have been creepy. At least they were wearing different ties today, thank God. 

Presently, Galahad Senior was looking out of place and embarrassed in only the way Harry Hart could: still perfectly staid, disgustingly British, and irredeemably flustered, while Galahad Junior was looking a mixture of apprehensive and excited, his left arm still in a sling, even as he kept shooting glances over at Harry, who was pretending there was nothing wrong, nothing at all. Which was what he had been resolutely doing since they’d unloaded him and Eggsy, unconscious, off the helicopter five weeks earlier.

At least he wasn’t completely suicidal anymore, so Merlin was going to take it. 

“All right then,” Merlin said, after the silence had grown so long and thin he could practically see Harry trying to come up with ways to kill him from where he was standing, like eye lasers or something. He would have kept it up, but being petulant much longer would’ve ruined the fun. “Galahad, this is your first mission back in the field since Cairo and Arthur, this is your first time _officially_ in the field since you returned to active service.” Harry scowled at him. Merlin ignored it. “With that in mind, this is a fairly simple mission, and I’m trusting the two of you to pull it off properly. No explosions, avoid property damage as much as possible because making police reports vanish is a pain in the arse, as little permanent harm as possible: _both of you_ try not to get shot.”

In the exact same tone, both of them said, “Yes, Merlin.” Uncanny, that was what it was.

“Now,” Merlin spun around in his chair and pulled up an image on his feed. “This is Armano Batali. He’s nominally a chef, but he’s leading a second life as a front for a drug running operation hiding in his kitchen. We already have plenty of intel about who he is working for and what his real position is, so you don’t need to worry about gathering information. Bedivere and Lancelot will be taking care of that side of the issue on next week’s mission. No,” Merlin spread his hand, tapping a few buttons on his clipboard to bring up some photos of the restaurant layout, their target, and his information, “You two need to kill him, and make a message out of it. I will not have more bloody crime syndicates popping up when it’s not even been five years since we wiped all the damn old ones out, I don’t think we can come up with a reason to do that again.” Eggsy snorted behind him. “Kill him, make it messy, leave a message, and then come back here and we can all have a pot of tea.” He spun back around, fingers steepled, eyebrows raised, and smiled. “Any questions?”

“No, I believe we’re capable of this. It isn’t exactly a difficult order to fulfil.” Harry said, in his Arthur voice, and Eggsy gave Merlin a thumbs up with his good arm.

“Sounds ace, Merlin.” He smiled, and Merlin smiled back. 

“Wonderful. Your reservation at the restaurant is for half past seven tonight, I expect you to be _on time_ , Arthur. If you can do that much, I’ll consider this mission a success.”

“What?” Harry spluttered—if it was to the reservation and the knowledge that he was about to go on a date with Eggsy whether he liked it or not or the fact that Merlin had just jibed him about being constantly late to literally fucking _everything_ was unclear—and the dawning mix of horror and excitement in Eggsy’s eyes was matched only by the absolute anguish on Harry’s face.

Even if everything else went terribly and this didn’t succeed, he was at least going to have that memory of Harry’s face to keep him warm at night for the rest of his life.

Merlin spun back around before his maniacal grin could give the whole thing away. There was a _reason_ he had decided to send these two particular bloody-minded idiots on this mission together, and it all had to do with the fact that, apparently, Harry and Eggsy weren’t going to figure out what everyone else already had until someone slammed their heads together over it. Possibly literally.

And if their cover was a couple, well...at least he could blame Roxy for that if it all blew sky-fucking-high.

 

  

Harry frowned at himself in the mirror later that evening and for the fifth time adjusted his bow tie. He owned more tuxedos than most men owned suits, but that didn’t mean he didn’t sometimes feel out of his skin in them. This was one of those times. He just could not feel right in white tie when he felt like he was about to break into a flop sweat and/or have his face turn the cover of a beet.

He was going to _kill_ Merlin when all this was said and done.

Fortunately (at the very least for his clothes-related sanity, if not for his emotions), there was a knock at the door downstairs and Harry descended, leaning on the railing , and smoothed a palm down his chest to flatten his lapels before he opened the door to reveal Eggsy standing on his front step. “Evening,” the younger man said, grinning. Cheeky. “You look well fit, Harry.”

“Thank you,” he said, honestly. Eggsy himself was also in a tuxedo, but he wore it completely differently than Harry did: instead of standing up, adjusting his posture and his bearing to the suit, becoming as clean-lined and smooth as the black tie affair itself, somehow Eggsy made his tuxedo seem...relaxed, informal. Comfortable. Like it was just as at ease as he himself was.

It was a talent that Harry had grown rather fond of, and, well—if that wasn’t the very issue at hand.

It had been two months since Cairo, and in those two months, he had probably sent more text messages than he had in the entire rest of the time he had owned a cell phone. All of them to Merlin. All of them at varying different times of the night. And in varying states of inebriation, actually, usually tending more toward _completely pissed_ than _pleasantly buzzed_. All because of the fact that, over his bleeding body, green eyes hazy and exhausted, Eggsy had let slip three words and then promptly forgotten ever saying them afterwards. 

It wasn’t the first time someone had told Harry that they loved him. It also wasn’t his first injured confession, either. No, it was a horrifying wakeup call that had jolted him into a horrible reality that he had somehow _completely missed_ after nearly three years of knowing Eggsy Unwin and out of his apathetic state of depression.

The reality, of course, was that Harry was completely fucking arse over tits in love with him.

And there you had the crux of the problem.

 

 

Their cab ride to the restaurant passed mostly in silence, both agents going over their dossiers and familiarising themselves one last time with the layout, their covers, and their target. By the time they arrived, they were fully prepared, and Harry stepped out of the cab and came over to open Eggsy’s door a moment later, offering his arm to the younger man. They were a couple, after all (and, oh, what he was going to do to Merlin later).“Lovely place,” he said to Eggsy, making smalltalk, and the younger man made a noise of assent, setting his hand atop Harry’s as he climbed out and angled their bodies together with ease.

“Too bad it’s about to lose a fucktonne of its clientele, yea?” he said, and Harry snorted, his face twisting with a smile at Eggsy’s good, if cruel, humour. They checked in, picking up a reservation for _White, party of two_ , and were led to a small, isolated round booth in a quiet corner of the restaurant, and Harry settled across from Eggsy, his long legs stretched under the table, their ankles knocking together by necessity with the small space. And probably all the better for it, since they were supposedly a couple.

They settled into an easy conversation over the menus, with after they ordered, Harry took advantage of the open time between ordering and just stared at Eggsy for the first time since they had gotten back from Cairo. Not for any real intent, just to...figure out what it was, that he had never seen before, that had blindsided him so utterly five weeks previous. It wasn’t just the younger man’s appearance—although Harry could not deny the overwhelming burst of attraction and affection he felt for Eggsy’s rakish, one-dimpled smile and his bright green eyes. It was also his quick tongue, sharp to jab and find weaknesses, and his kind demeanour. It was the fact that Eggsy really did look at Harry like Harry made the sun shine out his arse. It was the fact that Eggsy had never given up on Harry—even when Merlin had given up on him waking up, given up on him being himself again, when _Harry_ had given up ever being himself again, Eggsy had known. Eggsy had always waited. It was the fact that Eggsy loved him, perhaps, just as much as Harry loved him in return. 

And Eggsy had no idea Harry knew. And Harry wasn’t sure he _wanted_ the younger man to know he knew. It was so much easier, with the realisation and the reality of it all, to just look at this whole debacle with a resigned air of the knowledge that there was no way this ended well. Absolutely none. So he could just avoid it, pretend nothing had ever happened, lock his feelings away behind the Harry Hart As Arthur façade and pretend nothing, nothing fucking at all, had ever happened.

Because he was a coward.

And because he was _really shit_ at being happy.

As they started on their appetizers (which were fantastic, despite the fact that they were backed by significant amounts of drug money), Harry started cataloguing all the reasons this was a terrible idea, and would not go anywhere, even if the prospect of having dinner with Eggsy every night for the rest of his life, their ankles and knees knocking together under the table, was near-euphoric. Ends in disaster, and broken hearts, and Harry ruining yet _another_ relationship and getting completely plastered-drunk in Merlin’s loo again, etc, etc, etc.

First: Harry was older than Eggsy’s father. _Significantly_ older than Eggsy’s father—nearly ten years older. Which meant by extension that he was nearly old enough to be Eggsy’s father twice over, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He had always preferred younger men, but thirty years was quite the gap, and he could not quite reconcile himself to the idea that he had fallen in love with a boy who was just that— _a boy_ (not any more, but Harry still couldn’t shake it). When Eggsy was his age, Harry would by rights probably no longer be alive, and even if he was, he would be a shaking, broken mess. Or, well, more of a mess than he already was.

Second: Harry Hart was not good at commitment. His longest relationship had lasted a quite respectable ten years, but he had balked at every moment that it might have turned more significant, more romantic, more connected, more attached. He had never even wanted to move in with that partner, too afraid of what implications it might have. And, of course, with all that said, it had ended in a truly spectacular row when he had refused to cohabitate. After ten years. Harry was known, much to Merlin’s amusement, for refusing to spend nights with flings, for ending relationships early-on because he was too worried about the prospect of them panning out, just genuinely terrified, or so completely incapable of commitment that he ran at the first sign of any actual attachment.

Third: Harry was a selfish, emotionally-stunted, anti-romantic trainwreck of a human being. He had a grand total of one close friend, and that was only because once Merlin had his teeth in something there was no escape, and he’d gotten his teeth into Harry very, very early. Harry was completely incapable of talking about his feelings, and he was more likely to run away than face an emotional issue. No; he had found his true calling in beating the living shit out of people, and that allowed him ample opportunities to stay the _hell_ away from having to actually communicate with other human beings. 

Fourth: see second and third, but Harry was terrible at being happy. Really, truly shite at it. If there was a list in the world of people who were the literal worst at making themselves happy, Harry Hart had been sitting at the top of that list for fifty years.

Fifth: he was a shambles of a human being. Combine one through four, and add in the fact that he was missing an eye and about a third of his skull was synthetic, his aphasia and debilitating migraines, his shit leg and his otherwise chronic pain, why would anybody want him? Harry didn’t want himself. 

So, there. All good reasons why this would be a completely terrible idea, but was it so bad that for this one night he could enjoy Eggsy’s presence and think about how much he cared for the younger man? That maybe, he could pretend that this was more than a dinner for a mission, and that Harry had never heard the other man’s exhausted confession and had to admit a truth to himself he hadn’t known? And instead just think...what they could have, what if. 

“Thomas?” Harry looked up, surprised, when he felt Eggsy’s hand on his wrist, the younger man giving him a worried look, not letting go of him.

“Yes?” Harry replied, smiling his best charming, disarming smile. “What is it, my boy?” 

“You just been staring at me tie for five minutes, not saying nothing.” Eggsy said quietly. “You all right? You not having a relapse, are you?” Harry hesitated for a second, startled that Eggsy had noticed—but of course, how had he not? Eggsy, just like everyone else around him, spent much of his time watching Harry. Making sure he didn’t hurt himself. Making sure he was still alive.

The guilt and bile ate at the back of Harry’s throat. _This_ was why they wouldn’t work. He smiled, again, covering for the lapse, like nothing had happened.

“Of course. I’m quite all right, my dear boy, simply distracted. What did I miss?” Harry fell back into it like he hadn’t just spent most of supper staring at Eggsy like a goggle-eyed teenager. He glanced up to see a waiter waiting for them, holding a smaller menu. “Oh!” Harry brightened almost immediately. “Pudding!” The meal had sped by, and the man set down two small, hand-card menus before them. “I’ll take the tiramisu,” Harry said immediately, handing the card back while Eggsy hemmed and hawed between éclairs and a slice of some very fancy cheesecake.

He settled on the cake, eventually, and while they were waiting for their food, Harry settled back into his side of the booth, his feet pressed up against the bottom of the booth seat on Eggsy’s side, and raised his eyebrows. Not staring.

“You know, for work?” Eggsy said, after a moment, giving Harry a look as he drank his wine, “This ain’t half bad.” Harry found that he was giving the other man that twisted, half-hidden smile he hadn’t had on his face for a long time prior to the younger man arriving in his life. The one Merlin said made him look like a kitten. “Food costs a bloody arm and leg, but it’s fantastic.”

“Last chance to get an extra entree before we close it for good,” Harry reminded him, and Eggsy flashed him one of his pert grins. 

“Nah, I don’t think I could pull off a successful assassination while carrying a bag of takeout. Can you even imagine? Pistol in one hand and takeout bag in the other, I don’t think I’d really inspire the right kind of fear.” Harry laughed, bright, at that, and Eggsy looked like he’d just won a gold medal for succeeding at getting a laugh out of Harry. Their food arrived a few minutes later, and they ate together, Harry having to stare _very_ intently at the table while Eggsy made, quite frankly, indecent noises of pleasure across the table from him, moaning and humming and whimpering around his cheesecake. 

Bespoke trousers did not hide erections. 

Harry had learned that lesson when he was very young.

What he would do to have Eggsy make those noises. In his bed. While starkers. Harry winced—no, that wasn’t the right path to go down, good lord. No good ending to that.

Fortunately, by the time that they were preparing to leave he’d managed to spend so much time eating his tiramisu and paid for the cheque with work money (because the price of the meal made even him wince), Harry had himself back under control. Helping Eggsy up, Harry gently ran his hand down the younger man’s chest (shameless, terrible), and offered him a hand. “Come along, then, my dear.”

“Don’t have to ask twice, gorgeous.” If Harry hadn’t known that Eggsy was in love with him, he never would have questioned it. But knowing that Eggsy loved him, and that Harry loved Eggsy in return, the two of them were both _far_ over the line, and neither of them seemed to have any interest in stopping.

There was a very simple fact about doing pretty much anything in life, especially as a spy. As long as you _looked like_ you were supposed to be there and knew what you were doing, people hardly ever questioned you. Which was how Harry and Eggsy, laughing and talking to each other about nothing at all of consequence, heads pressed close together (and, of course, the both of them taking advantage of what they had for as long as they had it) casually walked into the night...and then turned right back around and went to the back entrance of the restaurant. A quick scout proved that they were alone, and Eggsy picked the lock before they climbed stairs together to silently hide in the office space on the floor above. It was only when they were both crouched down, pulling out their pistols and putting on their silencers, making a final prior to commencing the last phase of the operation, that Merlin’s voice popped into their feeds.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, and Eggsy grunted.

“Why wasn’t you with us at dinner? I was expecting you to give us a running commentary of where all the food was coming from.” He asked, and Harry replied before Merlin could— 

“Merlin doesn’t like to watch agents in the field eat good dinners. For him, it’s food porn. He’s always useless and hungry afterward.”

Merlin’s spluttering noise in the microphone was more than worth saying that phrase aloud. Eggsy’s cheek-splitting grin was pretty good, too.

Also, Merlin had jabbed at him for being late, and two could play that game. Harry effectively grabbed the ball and threw it back at Merlin’s head instead of knocking it into his court.

“ _Regardless_ ,” Merlin snapped, and Harry just looked at Eggsy, as if he was as innocent as a lamb, making the younger agent smile even more, “The restaurant closes at half past nine, and then you’ll probably want to wait another half an hour or so before you go in there. The fewer witnesses the better.”

“Do we know how late Batali stays?” Eggsy asked, tapping his fingers against his knee where he crouched while Harry pulled out his pistols and checked their clips, made sure all the parts of his gun were slotted together properly. Once he had done that, he moved on to checking his body for knives, his grenades, his ring, and pocket flamethrower (it was a kitchen, it could handle a bit of fire) and his other various weapons.

“Depends on the night. He stays later if he needs to make sure the bank boxes and their cover for the drug runs are good, but always at least fifteen minutes after everyone else. Probably to do the books, if I had to guess.” Merlin paused for a sip of coffee. “You two need to not be seen, so make sure you go back down there once everyone else has left.”

“Infrared, Galahad,” Harry said, quietly, and the younger man nodded and reached up to switch his glasses just as Harry did, the two of them looking down into the main kitchen below them. Harry could practically hear Merlin thinking in his ear while he looked back and forth to get a good view of everyone’s heat signature, and Merlin hummed in triumph after a moment.

“There, Arthur. The far left, stocky, slightly overweight, short.” Harry found the figure and zoomed in slightly so that Merlin could get a better look. “Almost certain that’s him. Keep an eye on that figure. I’ll run the CCTV feeds so if he does slip by you, he won’t slip by me” Their reservation had been for half past seven, and they had spent an hour and a half eating, which meant they now had an half an hour to wait, give or take a bit. 

“Settle in,” Harry murmured to Eggsy, who had already shifted to be comfortably pressed against the wall next to him, legs crossed at the ankles. “We have a bit.”

“Way ahead of you,” Eggsy replied, pulling out his phone, and soon enough he was completely still but for his fingers, which tapped rapidly over the keyboard, and Harry sighed—youth—and closed his eyes, relaxing slightly. It was his first time back out in the field on an actual mission since V-Day, and he had missed the feeling of waiting, the patience of a coiled predator about to pounce, the beat of his pulse and his breath. Harry knew some other agents who got impatient at this part (see, Exhibit A: James Trevelyan, or, Lancelot) and ended up getting in trouble because of it, but Harry had the patience of a saint. He could stay put for hours, waiting for just the right opportunity to arise. 

It seemed like in no time at all Eggsy was slipping on his gloves and saying, “Arthur, let’s, yeah?” and Harry came back to himself, stood up fluidly, legs straightening with more than a bit of aching in the bad one, but there wasn’t time to acknowledge that one being finicky.

“Right after you, Galahad.” Harry—Arthur—smiled, slid on his own gloves, and settled his pistol in his hand. He looked down into the kitchen below, just to double check the younger agent’s knowledge that their target was alone, and then the two of them went down the back stairs and once again into the alley. The kitchen door was part-way open, to let in the cool outside air, and Eggsy took point, leading with his good right arm to avoid putting any undue strain on the one still healing, Harry right on his tail.

“Evening, guvnor,” Galahad said, chipper as can be, as he stepped into the kitchen. Batali turned around and froze, found himself staring down the barrels of two silenced guns. “We’d like to have a talk, yeah? You and me and my friend here. Just about some of your business. Friendly-like.” 

Arthur kicked the door out of the kitchen shut with a slam. He turned the deadbolt without looking, his pistol never wavering. It was the three of them, and Batali looked rightfully scared out of his mind—and, if Arthur had been in his place, staring at Galahad with his smile with too many teeth and Arthur as stoic as a rock, he would have been scared, too.

And that was the point that Batali started screaming in Italian. Galahad looked taken aback and confused. Looking over at Arthur with an expression of someone who was completely lost, Arthur sighed and set his hand on the younger man’s shoulder to tell him without words, _I have this_.

“This will be much easier for everyone involved if you don’t insist on pretending that neither of us speak Italian,” Harry said, in Italian. Batali froze, and Galahad was looking between them rapidly, leaning toward Arthur, waiting for an explanation. They would need to work on that—Galahad was only fluent in English, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic. They had neglected some of the European languages because they weren’t entirely vital to spywork, but he should have French, German, and Italian as well.

“Who the hell are you?” Batali snapped, his face bright red. “How did you find me?”

“Your people haven’t exactly left an airtight trail. It wasn’t difficult to find that it led back to you.” Arthur clicked off his pistol’s safety. “How we found you and who we are doesn’t matter, of course. We hope you understand what we’re here to do.” Batali was shaking, but Arthur wasn’t buying it.

You didn’t start a drug ring out of your kitchen if you couldn’t take a little bit of fear.

And he was right, of course, because a moment later with a wordless shout the chef pulled an automatic from under the counter and opened fire. “Down!” Arthur shouted, grabbing Galahad’s shoulder and shoving him under the nearest counter. Bullets pinged and peppered above their heads.

“He can’t have that many bullets in there,” Galahad said, his green eyes narrowed and bright behind his glasses. Arthur nodded, poised. “I could just lob a—“

“Galahad, don’t you dare blow that kitchen up!” Merlin’s voice sounded loud in both their ears, Galahad wincing.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, darling haggis,” Arthur snapped as he shifted up, keeping his good side facing toward their current target, and managed to get a look that Batali was coming toward them before he ducked back down, switching his glasses once again to infrared.

“On your nine,” Arthur said, quietly, and Galahad twisted and pivoted, firing blindly around the edge of the counter. His shot was loud in the contained kitchen, echoing off the tile, and Batali screamed. He’d hit, wonderful. Still, the deluge of the machine gun hadn’t stopped, so Arthur grabbed Galahad’s sleeve and dragged him around the side of the counter, keeping space between them and Batali.

It didn’t take long, though. Soon enough he was out of bullets because no automatic lasted, and then Galahad was up like a shot, still keeping his bad arm tucked as he vaulted over the counter and hit the chef feet-first, downing him immediately even while Arthur was still coming around the side, a second too slow because of his leg, but still nearly up to speed.

Galahad had pinned Batali by the time Arthur got there, twisted both his arms behind his back and had sat on them. He wasn’t going anywhere—Galahad was shorter than Arthur and slimmer, but was deceptively strong. “Now,” Arthur said, moving his foot to press the toe of his shoe into Batali’s temple, forcing him to turn his head, “Are you going to talk?” They were just there for assassination, of course, but it didn’t hurt to give it the old college try. It was remarkable what few seemingly innocent and pointless questions could do for you down the line; Arthur had learned years before to run through all the paces even in the most routine missions.

Batali just screamed invective at him in Italian, and Arthur sighed, looked around the kitchen, peppered with gunfire. No doubt the police were almost definitely on their way, so Merlin was going to have to assume this was enough of a message. Good lord, but was he going to have a hell of a time with the security footage.

“Well, your decision,” Arthur said, conversationally, and shot Batali in the head. The gunshot was loud in the kitchen even despite his silencer, and Galahad got up after he’d taken the shot, but Arthur turned the man’s head and put a second bullet through the top of the back of his neck, shattering his cervical vertebrae and pulverising his spinal column.

He took the silencer off, holstered his pistol, and went to open the kitchen door for Galahad. “After you, my dear boy,” he smiled, and Galahad followed at pace, and it was only once they were outside walking down the alley and back out into the street that they both took off their gloves.

“Bit unnecessary, weren’t it?” Eggsy asked, strolling along next to him, hands in his pockets—utterly ruining the slim lines of his tuxedo. “Shootin’ him twice?”

“Absolutely not,” Harry said, archly. “Having survived being shot once in the head, I’m not in the mood to test anybody else doing the same. Double tap, my dear boy, is a sure way to make sure there are no _incidents_ down the line.” Eggsy nodded in his peripheral vision, staying on his right, as he always did.

Always, Harry belatedly realised, except when they had gone into the kitchen. Then, Eggsy had always been on his left side. Even when they had been skittering around on their knees, Eggsy had kept basically plastered to his blind side.

“’S fair, since you lived it, an’ all.” Eggsy said, after a moment, and then Harry stopped, just...froze. Mid-step. Eggsy kept going without him for a few steps before he realised Harry had frozen, and then he turned around, worry crumpling his young features. “Harry?” He said, stepping closer. “Harry, bruv, you all right?”

“You...” he managed, at last, “You stayed on my left, the whole time we were in there.” Eggsy just watched him. “You always walk and stand on my right, just like everyone else.” Harry tended to get antsy, and occasionally violent, when people surprised him from his left. He still hadn’t come to terms with it, even after three years. Frankly, he wasn’t sure if he ever would. “But in there—“

“Course,” Eggsy replied, his eyebrows pressed together, smiling slightly, sad. “Course I did, Harry. You can’t go in on a mission without someone to guard your left, eh?” Harry Hart’s heart was doing a very peculiar thing—it was twisting and flipping over at the same time, and rather also felt like it had just turned to lead and dropped into the pit of his stomach, where it was hanging dense and heavy and also yet simultaneously was about to burst out his throat.

If Merlin had been there, he probably would have called the feeling _love_.

For a long moment Harry stood very still, and then lifted one hand up toward Eggsy, as if to cup his face, and right before his fingers touched the younger man’s skin Harry had a profound moment where, just this once, his brain caught up to the rest of him.

He didn’t cup Eggsy’s cheek, lean in, and kiss him. As much as he wanted to, he didn’t. Harry just set his hand on the other man’s shoulder, and smiled. Didn’t kiss him. Thought about kissing him. Thought about kissing him rather a lot.

“Thank you,” Harry said instead, and he meant it.

 

 

Three weeks later, once again, Galahad Junior and Senior found themselves in Merlin’s office, getting handed a pair of dossiers from a very irate-looking tech magician, with the tell-tale fuzz around his face and head that meant something had gone utterly tremendously tits-up wrong.

“Since Ector’s gone and gotten himself a concussion at his niece’s bloody birthday party,” Merlin’s face was murderous, which Harry didn’t blame him for, given that Ector had gotten said concussion running beside a pool, “We’ve had to shuffle agents _again_. Galahad, you were originally meant to go on this with Ector given his _fascinating_ regard for unconventional methods of brutally murdering people, but considering the concussion and the fact that he’s apparently spent the past two days vomiting non-stop in bed,” Merlin grimaced, and Eggsy caught something that sounded _suspiciously_ like the fact that he didn’t take well to a concussion taking Ector off-duty when he had in the past refused to leave duty despite _literally losing his arm to torture_ before he continued, “You two are in this together.”

“Are you sure it’s best to send me to Bali?” Harry asked, his handsome face slightly scrunched in question. “Overnight, yes, but for a week, and I haven’t been out of the country without observation since V-Day—“

“Everyone else is out on assignment, and Galahad isn’t capable of doing it alone.” Merlin raised his eyebrows. “Unless you think I _shouldn’t_ be sending you?” Harry’s lips were a pursed white line.

“I didn’t say that,”

“I’d be fine on me own, you know that, ‘arry needs to stay ‘ealthy and all,” Eggsy cut in, but Merlin raised a hand to stop him mid-sentence.

“Improvising under fire is your particular strength, young man. Pretending to—“

“Pretending to be a rich old man who has predilections toward nubile young things in a human trafficking ring is not. At least I have a cover I can use.” Harry said instead, and then continued, “And I’m going to have the murder the head of it with poison. In the middle of a crowded dinner party. With you,” he meant Eggsy, “As my young business partner I am introducing to the...finer. Things in life. Which means I am going, and I suppose you are on medical observation on top of everything fucking else.”

“Are you taking the piss?” Eggsy murmured, flipping open his own folder. Bali sounded fucking _top_ , it did, but...the face he made as he read the mission details was absolutely disgusted.

Harry wasn’t joking.

“Is this some kind of horrible payback for ’93,” Harry said, scowling at Merlin, and the other man raised his eyebrows and said, with the tone of voice of someone who is lying through their teeth,

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

So they went to Bali.

 

 

“Bloody hell,” Galahad’s voice said into his ear, in the middle of a party so rich that frankly even Harry was starting to get a little bit nauseous (weak damn chins), “They’s younger than I was when you found me.”

“Quite a bit younger than that, even,” Arthur replied, taking a sip of his champagne. They had both taken the medication Merlin always sent on missions like this earlier, meant to keep their bodies filtering alcohol because you _never_ went on a mission when you were anything but sober (unless you were the previous Exhibit A, James Trevelyan, Lancelot). Especially not one like this.

They had spent a marvellous three days in Bali at a resort, and it had almost been nice enough to forget about the underage sex slave human trafficking. Almost. Eggsy had gotten to spend an entire fantastic afternoon with Harry in only a pair of swim trunks (which was something he was pretty certain he would remember the rest of his life) and they had done plenty of surveillance, scouting, hacking, the usual.

Now, on their final night on the island, they had one last job to do. They had to go into this party, kill the host, and make use of the very technology that had once almost been their undoing, two and a half years before (nanobots in the wine) to mark the innocents that needed rescue after they had killed their target.

The nanobots were Galahad’s job. Their cover, with Arthur as his mentor, had been that here he was, a young man just edging on into his golden years of adulthood (he was, after all, more toward thirty now than toward twenty) and he was ready to look into some of the finer pleasures of men of their station. Because, once you had the kind of money that Kingsman could bring to bear, you had to come up with something to spend it all on. Arthur, using an old cover, was a well-known patron of...similar organisations, who was here to see if there was anything that caught his eye.

So, it was perfectly reasonable that he would mingle with similar men and women, cracking jokes, trading tips, while Galahad got his job done. It was more than slightly disconcerting that Arthur had now attended enough events of this type undercover as Sir Doctor Wilson Hampshire IV to actually know a good two dozen people, some of them contacts and some of them real clients, that he was just walking about, _schmoozing_. Small talk, _that_ was what he was doing. And working his way, ever closer, to the woman they were going to kill.

All around them, weaving in and out of men and women of Galahad’s age (on the young end) to the previous Arthur’s age (on the old end) that made up the clientele, were the products. At the oldest, the girls and boys were maybe twenty, the girls wearing only pasties on their nipples and crotchless knickers and the boys in jockstraps and chastity belts.

Somehow, that was even worse than if they were just purely naked.

“Ones I’ve marked should show up on your glasses, Arthur. If you see one who isn’t, send them my way.”

“Of course,” Arthur replied, and saw a girl immediately after. He held up a hand to get her attention, and after carefully eyeing her up, sent her over to meet his young companion. “Wonderful wine,” he then said, a moment later, when he spied their host walking past him.

 _Going silent_ , that cued for Galahad. From here on in, any mistakes would be up to the both of them improvising and hoping they could run fast enough. Arthur pushed through the crowd and came up to their host, smiling.

“I was wondering if you might be at this magnificent gala,” he said, as introduction. Their host looked at him, and she raised her perfectly plucked brows.

“Have we met?” she asked at last, and Harry shook his head.

“Never in person, no. I’ve been to _quite_ a few of your events in the past.” Arthur held out his hand, and she shook it, daintily. “Doctor Wilson Hamsphire. You must be Lady Margaret, and it is _truly_ a pleasure.”

“Yes, indeed. You say you’ve been to quite a few of these?”

“A few years ago.” Arthur tapped his eyepatch. “Cancer can strike even the best of us.” She shook her head.

“You were lucky to lose only your eye, Doctor.” Then, she smiled, one eyebrow up. “What do you think, then, coming back after so much time?”

“Just as marvellous as I remember it. Bali was a wonderful choice, the beauty of the landscape matches the beauty of the servers.” He smiled, and she laughed.

“No, you’re certainly not wrong.” Margaret gestured over his shoulder at a server, and Harry saw his chance and took it, grabbing the champagne flute she was clearly reaching for and twisting the inside of the fake wedding ring he had been given for this mission, pouring the poison into the champagne. It dissolved instantly, and he smoothly handed the glass to her, polite as ever. They toasted their cups together, and she took a sip. “If it has been several years for you, then we’ve grown significantly.”

“Yes, you certainly have.” Arthur offered his arm to the woman, and she took it as they walked together. “The last event I was able to make it to was...was it really Copenhagen, in 2013? I believe it was.”

“That was a wonderful event,” Margaret said, smiling as she continued to drink her champagne. “Our first successful international one, I have quite fond memories.”

“As do I, and this event is certainly living up to them,” Arthur promised, and she laughed. “I actually brought along my protégé, and if anything, he has enjoyed it more than I have, if you can believe it. He has, well, the _energy of youth_ , you know how it is.” Arthur was fast coming up on sixty to match Galahad’s thirty, and Lady Margaret was not much younger. “I think he would take them all home, if he could.”

“We all feel that way. It’s hard to not want to; with how pretty they can be.” Arthur murmured his assent, and Margaret looked at him out the corner of her eye. She had drunk most of the flute now, he just had to make sure she finished it. “Are there any you want, Wilson?”

“If I had come for myself, perhaps. No, I’m here for my boy, and I’ll be financing his first splurge. However much I wish I could partake, sometimes, we must keep our hands to ourselves.” Arthur watched as Margaret finished her champagne, and then said, “In fact, speaking of, here he is right now. Timothy!”

Galahad turned around from where he was, about twenty feet away, and came over, bowing generously to Margaret. “There you are, Wilson. Look at this lovely lady,” and Arthur raised his eyebrows slightly, _fantastic_ timing on Galahad’s part, to have finished with the nanobots at almost precisely the same moment that Arthur had finished poisoning their host. “Trisha, curtsy to Wilson, will you?” The girl that Galahad had brought over did so, and Arthur raised his eyebrows.

“She’s very pretty,” he said, and Lady Margaret confirmed,

“A very good pick.” She reached out and tilted the girl’s head up, angling her chin back and forth. Arthur felt vaguely sick—Trisha couldn’t have been any older than fifteen. _Maybe_. And Lady Margaret was treating her like _livestock_. “She’s very pretty, Timothy. Her breasts will fill out quite well, I think, if you decide to keep her that long.” Galahad nodded, his green eyes wide like he was eating up every word the woman said. “Will you be buying her, then?” Margaret asked, looking at him intently.

“Her, and I think one other, a nice lad.” Galahad looked to Arthur. “Want to come have a look? He’s _just_ your type.” Galahad winked, grinning, and Arthur made a show of sighing long-sufferingly.

“Timothy, you know what I said about purchasing for _myself_ ,” but he still nodded generously and bowed to Lady Margaret. “Thank you for your time, Lady Margaret. I hope to see you at some future events?” Arthur raised his eyebrows, and she smiled after him.

“Certainly.”

As they walked away, blending back into the party, Arthur counted slowly to a thousand. He went through the introductions to the boy. He and Galahad stepped out onto the balcony, leaving behind young Trisha for the pickup team.

They were dropping off into the night, vanishing down into the wide-open private beach, when Harry clicked the button on the inside of his ring. The poison activated. Their jobs were finished.

 

 

Four hours later, in their hotel room, Eggsy groaned in pleasure as he stripped out of his tuxedo—Harry echoed it with a sound of assent, because he felt much the same. They had waited, just in case, hidden crouched down in the underbrush nearby with sniper rifles, until the evac team had finished dealing with the fallout and had gotten the victims out to go to recovery. After that, they had trekked back here, and now, the both of them were stripping. Thank fucking god.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to enjoy pasties or chastity belts quite as much again,” Harry said, a little bit morosely as he draped his bow tie over the back of a chair. “I’m glad I _never_ have to use that cover again.”

“Merlin said you’ve been goin’ to those for ten years?” Eggsy asked, his voice filled with horror. “I couldn’t a done it, ‘arry. ‘ow’d you not lose it, just crack?”

“Compartmentalise, my dear boy,” Harry was just as tired as Eggsy was, and he sat down on the edge of his bed after a moment, rubbing at his face one-handed. “I suppose it used to be...easier, when I was younger. Before I was Arthur, it was so much easier to just focus on myself and the mission, and my failure didn’t mean anything to anybody but myself. Now, I know just how much weight rests on every agent’s shoulders. It becomes quite humbling, really, seeing that web of interconnected actions and reactions. Before...I was just a false name, going in, getting information, building relationships we could use later.” He paused and looked over at Eggsy, frowning. “I was about to ask you how you handled it, seeing each and every one of those children and having to give them wine.”

“’S hard,” Eggsy replied, sitting down next to him after a moment, their knees and thighs bumping. Harry had shed his coat and bowtie, but still sat in his waistcoat, and Eggsy was down past his shirtsleeves, his dress shirt hanging unbuttoned and half-untucked. “I mean...Christ, most of them weren’t much older than Daisy.” He sighed and leaned his chin on his hand. “If somefin’ like that ‘appened to ‘er, I’d ‘unt the person what did it down to the ends of the earth. And then probably kill ‘em in about eighteen diff’rent ways.” Harry laughed, shook his head.

“That’s why what we do is important,” he settled on, at last, setting his hand on Eggsy’s knee and squeezing. “Some of those children were sold by their families, I’m sure, but there are many of them who were kidnapped, who still have parents and siblings looking for them. They’ll get their children back, because of what you did in there, with the wine.”

“Yeah,” Eggsy murmured, and Harry found that they were looking at each other. Eggsy’s green eyes were bright, and crinkling at the corners with his smile—when had his gorgeous boy gotten crows feet? Had time gone by so fast? “’S why I’m so glad you brought me inna all of this. If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know how to stop arseholes like tha’. I wouldn’t be able to save kids what can’t save themselves.” Harry was watching his lips as he spoke, and the true, honest conviction in his eyes that built with each word. “There’s nothin’ I’d rather be doin’, Harry. Especially with you by my side.”

Harry stared at Eggsy. Neither of them moved for a long moment—their faces inches apart, their legs pressed together from ankle to thigh, both completely frozen. “Oh,” Harry finally breathed, his voice pitched low and soft, “My dear boy.”

And then, like it was the most matter-of-fact thing in the world, Harry leaned over and kissed him. It was chaste, and tasted a little bit of champagne, and it lasted both no time at all and as long as the eternity of the earth. And, eventually, Harry pulled away and Eggsy stared at him, green eyes bright, and whispered,

“’ow’d you know to do tha’?”

Harry stared at him, brown eyes wide, and finally murmured, “I’m not quite sure.” And then, because he was Harry Hart, and could not do anything in life but brutally sabotage himself to his own muted horror, he blinked, and the silent spell strung between them broke, and he did what he did best when it came to interpersonal relationships.

He ran away.

 

 

The following two weeks were absolutely miserable. Harry had practically sprinted out of their room in the hotel and had locked himself in the loo until their pickup, and then he had avoided Eggsy at the private landing strip, had gotten onto the jet, had avoided him there by joining the pilot up front, and when they had reached England he’d stayed only long enough for their joint debrief with Merlin before he’d practically legged it like a sprinter back down the hallway, gone around the corner so fast that Eggsy’s call of “Harry, wait!” after him echoed off of nothing but antique oak panelling.

It was like that for the rest of the two weeks. If Eggsy came in a room, Harry left it, and if Harry walked into a room where Eggsy was, he practically slapstick-turned directly back out. At meetings, Harry intentionally looked at every other agent except Eggsy despite the younger man being literally at his right hand, and instead of passing on missions to the younger agent as he usually would, he delegated that to Merlin.

He even missed their regular Friday dinner date, where he and Eggsy went out to the lovely greasy fish and chips place down by Eggsy’s old apartment and sat on the kerb and ate with their hands, Eggsy going through piles of paper napkins while Harry fastidiously used his handkerchief, not even _thinking_ of ruining his suits. They’d both kept that dinner date, barring missions and hospital stays (and they’d managed even the latter with take-out) every Friday for nearly three years.

And Harry missed it. _Twice_. Which was damn fucking close to unforgivable, actually.

It was after the second missed dinner date that Eggsy finally got the balls together to march the half a block over to Harry’s place and pounded on the door before he set his hands into his pockets and waited for it to open. A few moments later it did, revealing Harry Hart in a much-darned red dressing gown, absurd slippers, and his matching off-white pyjama set underneath.

“Harry, listen, we need to talk,” Eggsy began, but before he could even get that much out Harry’s expression had gone from curious, to neutral, to absolutely pants-shittingly frightened out of his mind in the space of about three seconds, and before Eggsy could react to do something utterly mind-bogglingly _stupid_ like, oh, sticking his foot in the goddam door, Harry had slammed it shut. In his face.

And that was the point where Eggsy decided to take matters into his own damn hands, because it didn’t look like Harry was ever going to get his head up out of where he had permanently lodged it about two feet up his arse.

He decided to make a deal with the devil, so to speak.

He went to go see Merlin.

 

 

“Ey, Merlin, bruv, can I talk t’you ‘bout somethin’?” Merlin looked up from where he was tinkering with some kind of tiny chip and set down his miniscule tools on his desk, spun his chair around, eyebrows raised.

“Certainly, Eggsy. Something on your mind?”

“You could say tha’, yeah.” He came over and sat down on the edge of the older man’s desk and crossed his arms, frowning. Considering how rarely he frowned, Merlin cottoned on almost immediately.

“Eggsy?” He shifted slightly, like he was getting a better look at the younger man. “What’s happened?”

“You’ve known ‘arry a...you’ve known ‘arry a really _fuckin’_ long time, right?” Eggsy said, lips pursed, watching Merlin. “Like, since you was both in your twenties, yeah?”

“About, yes.” Merlin steepled his fingers. “Why? Are you looking for blackmail material?”

“I wish.” Eggsy snorted, still frowning. “I wish it was that fuckin’ easy, bruv. But it ain’t, and that’s the damn problem. ‘e’s been right weird the past few weeks, and I don’t know what to do w’it, Merlin. It’s like ‘e’s...I don’t know, afraid that I’m goin’ to explode if he so much as sets foot wivin about twenty feet of me, and if he looks at me I’m goin’ to catch fire.”

Merlin studied the younger man, and then, with a triumphant smile, leaned back in his chair and started _bouncing_. Merlin only bounced when he was really, _really_ pleased about something, and it hardly ever boded well for anybody involved. Merlin being pleased was, as far as Eggsy could tell, literally never, in any situation, ever, a good thing.

“He kissed you.” Merlin said. It wasn’t a question. Eggsy startled slightly.

“Wha’? Did you—“ the dawning look of horror when his brain (belatedly) slotted together the disparate pieces of the puzzle was truly tremendous. “You...you’ve been setting this whole fuckin’ thing up,” he said, staring at Merlin like Merlin had just grown a second head. “You planned this. You—you put ‘arry into. You made,”

“I only gave you two the inevitable push to get you to do it on your own. It was supposed to get you and Harry out of my and Roxy’s metaphorical hair, but apparently that didn’t work out quite as planned.” Merlin rubbed at his chin. “I should have seen this coming.”

“Seen _what_ comin’?” Eggsy was still frowning. “’arry being like this—you mean you could’a predicted that?”

“Not just _could_ have, Eggsy. _Should_ have. This isn’t my first train ride with Harry Hart’s complete inability to be happy.” Merlin paused. Into the silence, Eggsy took a long, slow breath.

“’arry...Harry’s ‘appy. I mean, I don’t think he’s been ‘appy lately but I can’t really _tell_ , can I? Since ‘e’s been avoidin’ me like I have the fuckin’ plague, and all.” Merlin nodded, somewhat sagely. “’e ‘as to be happy. He’s got a job he loves, and friends, and a great house, and a fantastic body for his age and gorgeous clothes and—“

“And he was happy. Or happy enough, anyway, until he finally got his head out from his arse and realised three years after every other human being on planet fucking Earth that he was in love with you.” Merlin reached out and squeezed Eggsy’s bicep. “That’s the problem, Eggsy. Harry can be happy enough, with what he has in life, but he can’t make _himself_ happy. Did you know he hasn’t taken a single vacation since he became Arthur?” Eggsy paused.

“Wha’ about when he ‘ad two weeks in hospital with that seizure—“

“Medical leave, and he only took it because I changed literally every one of his passwords to lock him out of all his accounts, and trust me, I got a hell of an earful from him once he was able to talk again. Not a single vacation, Eggsy. He works twelve hour days, at least. He doesn’t even take Sundays off any more unless you make him. But he’s happy like that, and always has been.” Merlin muttered something that sounded a bit like _creep_ under his breath before he continued. “He hasn’t seen anyone since V-Day. As far as I know, you’re the first kiss he’s had in more than five years.”

Eggsy just stared at the older man, boggle-eyed. “But Harry—he’s. He’s bloody well fit, Merlin.”

“He is, and I know there have been plenty of offers. He’s just said no to all of them. It’s partly guilt, I think. But he also just has this _thing_.” Merlin shook his head and waved a hand. “He can’t make himself happy when it comes to other people. He refused to become my friend for the first three years I knew him, because he didn’t feel like he could give as much to a friendship as I could.” He paused, and then added, “Has he told you about James?”

“No?” Eggsy replied, and Merlin’s expression, which had been light, suddenly dampened, became sullen, his eyes closed for a moment.

“Wanker,” Merlin spat, at last. “Of course he fucking didn’t. Of course. Probably thought it was better to pretend it had never happened, or that you’d feel sorry for him. _Christ_ , Harry, it’s a fucking miracle you haven’t cracked completely.” The magician threw his hands in the air, the universal sign that he’d completely given up on Harry. Again. Eggsy, like everyone else who had spent more than about a day with Merlin, was used to his tirades about how completely fucking ridiculous Harry Hart was, and just waited it out until Merlin threw himself back in his chair, making it bounce and the wheels shift slightly across the floor. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Uh,” Eggsy said, not really sure how to cut back in, given that Merlin was now in A Mood about Harry (again, not a totally out-of-context reaction to Harry’s existence) but the older man snorted angrily out his nose like a charging bull just waiting for his opportunity to run his matador (Harry) over, and finally snarled,

“James, Eggsy. James. Lancelot.” And then it all slotted together. Lancelot, who Eggsy had been supposed to take the place of. Lancelot, who had died trying to save Professor James Arnold almost four years before, who had put into motion everything that had led up to the events of V-Day. Lancelot, who Harry had once called a _dear friend_ , who had also known Eggsy’s father. “Didn’t you ever wonder why Harry has almost no photos of himself up in his house, aside from the fact that he’s a paranoid trainwreck of a human being? It’s because probably most of the photos of him from the past twenty years have James in them, in one form or another.” Merlin tapped his fingers on his armrest loudly. “I can’t believe he never bloody _told_ you.”

“He ‘asn’t mentioned Lancelot since...well, since ‘e woke up, actually.” Eggsy’s expression was worried. “Were they...?”

“They went out for about ten years,” Merlin confirmed, tiredly. “They officially broke up probably a year or two before you showed up. They...worked well, together. Harry loved James, but he was absolutely terrified of commitment. It all worked well until James started dropping hints about them moving in together, and then it just fell apart overnight. Harry said no, they had a massive bloody row...” Merlin sighed. “Honestly, in hindsight, the entire thing is more than a little bit absurd.”

“What’d they ‘ave the row about?” Eggsy asked. He wasn’t so much morbidly curious as just...unsure what to think. Harry was edging on toward sixty, and considering the number of relationships that Eggsy had been in at half his age, he would never have expected Harry to have remained single as if he was waiting for Eggsy. He’d long since resigned his affection for the older man to never going anywhere. Harry didn’t love him, didn’t even like him in that way—to Harry, Eggsy was his protégé, his student, his partner, his friend. _Not_ potential shag material.

Yeah, and then Harry had kissed him, and that entire train of thought had gone careening out the window and both literally and metaphorically exploded. Probably. And, now that he knew that Harry was into younger men, had been in a relationship with another man for _ten fucking years_ that kind of put a hell of a lot more on the table, now didn’t it?

“Harry was terrified of the commitment of living with someone else, that was certainly part of it.” Merlin paused. “But it was also...Eggsy, Harry really has never forgiven himself for your father’s death. James never did either, actually. And that was the problem, really. Neither of them could ever let it go.”

Eggsy looked at his hands.

It had been over twenty years since his father had died. Sometimes, he wondered if the spectre of that would ever lift, or if he was going to spend the rest of his life with people always judging him with the knowledge that his father had jumped onto a grenade to save the lives of three men.

“So, what’s tha’ got t’do with me now, eh?” Eggsy said, once he’d gotten his words back. “I get i’. ‘arry can’t handle commitment to another human being because he’s afraid of it, or sommit. But what’s tha’ got to do with _this_ , with ‘im being too fucking terrified to even be in the same room as me?”

“Because he thinks he’s going to kill you,” Merlin said. Matter-of-factly. Like he hadn’t just punched Eggsy in the chest with his words.

“ _What?_ ” Eggsy spluttered, at last.

“That’s what happened with James, Eggsy. You were in training at the time, and he didn’t know you well enough, so that’s all I bloody well heard about for nearly a year. After your father’s death...we. All reacted in different ways to it. It’s one thing to kill people, to see people you love and care for die, but it’s another one entirely to watch someone jump onto a grenade to save you.” Merlin’s voice cracked, slightly. “Your father was a very brave man, and I know you’re tired of hearing it, but it can’t be exaggerated enough. He saved all three of our lives without even thinking.

“Afterwards, I shut everyone out for a very long time. I worked until I collapsed, and then I’d get up and do it again. Eventually, I ended up in the A&E and Arthur nearly pulled me from duty and I got my act together. James and Harry, though...” Merlin rubbed at the sagging skin under his eyes. His eyebrows were starting to fleck with white, taking the place of the greying that was going in Harry’s hair. “They became...reckless. Stupid, even. They had no limits, no inhibitions. That’s how they ended up together in the first place—neither one of them had any concept of self-preservation. It was all near-death experiences for a few years there.

“Harry took a shrapnel burst to the chest, in about ’05, and that finally brought him back to his senses. They stayed together, but as the years went on, Harry began to try more and more to slow James down, but he never really listened. He’d become so used to living by the skin of his teeth that he couldn’t do it any other way. He just...assumed he’d barely make it out alive. He made stupid decisions—stupid, preventable decisions.”

“Like stagin’ a one-man rescue mission into a location ‘e didn’t know wivout informin’ anyone, and wivout taking ‘is glasses _or_ ‘is earpiece,” Eggsy finished, and Merlin nodded.

“Like that.”

“So ‘e blames himself for Lancelot’s death, is tha’ i’? And he’s afraid tha’ if I stay around him, I’m goin’ to end up the same way?” The anger was mounting in Eggy’s voice, his accent getting thicker with it, and all Merlin could think was, well, good fucking luck to Harry Hart after Eggsy was done with him.

“That’s the long and the short of it, yes.” Merlin shrugged one shoulder. “Harry thinks that if he hadn’t spent so long making James think that being reckless was all right, he wouldn’t have gotten killed. He’s scared that you’re going to take after him, too. Get yourself shot in front of a church by an omnicidal maniac, or sliced in half.” Eggsy’s chest and stomach felt tight. He almost felt sick.

“I ‘ave to go talk to Harry,” he blurted out at last, and Merlin nodded.

“Yes, you had damn better.” He hesitated, and then added, “Eggsy, he’s never going to get over James’ death. He’s never gotten over Lee’s, either. That’s just not the person that Harry is. But at a certain point, he has to actually live his life. You’re...the only person he’ll do it for.”

“Yeah.” Eggsy said, standing, brushing off his suit. “Fanks, bruv.”

And he walked out of the older man’s office, green eyes narrowed, stepping with purpose. He knew what he had to go do now.

 

 

When he got back to the cul-de-sac of Kingsman townhomes that evening, Eggsy bypassed his own flat completely and went straight to Harry’s front door. Arthur hadn’t even showed up at work the whole day, working from home, and if his conversation with Merlin hadn’t put Eggsy on edge, _that_ would’ve. The upstairs was completely dark, and the only light on downstairs was shining out the living room window, barely lighting up the kitchen window as well. It honestly didn’t even look like an actual light—more like a reflection or a screen.

It hadn’t even been a year since Harry had gotten his act together, pulled himself up out of the pit of depression that he’d nearly died in, and Eggsy couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever be able to forget that. To forget how much he and Merlin had worried. To forget how fucking frightened that he had been that someday, any day, he was going to get a call from Merlin or he was going to have to call Merlin or—

Harry had come too damn close to killing himself. He might have tried to push past it, pretend that everything was fine now that he was recovering, but Eggsy sure as hell hadn’t. And with all that together, with the lights still dark? Considering that it was only about six in the evening, that wasn’t a great sign.

“Harry?” Eggsy called, pounding on the older man’s door. “’arry? It’s me! We need to talk!” It was silent from inside the house and Eggsy stopped, palm pressed flat to the front of Harry’s door. He waited, straining his ears. Breathing heavy, tried to press back the panic. Harry would be fine, Harry was all right. Harry was better Harry wanted to live Harry was Harry was fine. “Harry? Are you all right?” He pounded the door again, and there was still no answer.

He might have been out at dinner, except that Harry ate dinner about seven, and almost never any earlier. He hadn’t been at the mansion all day, so he wasn’t there either. He had to be at home—at least, that was the obvious place.

Eggsy fished out his phone and quickly shot a text to Harry that said where r u? and then held it for a moment. The text went through, and he waited, hand pressed to the front of the door, as nothing happened. No response. It didn’t even pop up as read, even after he waited five minutes. _H srsly where r u_. Still no response. Nothing.

Don’t panic: basic first lesson of being a spy. Don’t fucking panic, even when you’re scared out of your wits that the man you love might’ve finally cracked and stuck a gun in his mouth. Don’t panic.

Eggsy shoved his phone back in his pocket, snarled, and practically beat down Harry’s door. “’arry if you’re in there you better open this fuckin’ door or so help me fuckin’ god I’m goin’ to come in there and beat the livin’ shit out of your pasty, self-absorbed arse!”

Still no response.

So, because Eggsy was a well-trained agent, before he raised his foot and literally kicked down the door, which he was completely ready to do, he tried the handle. The knob was unlocked, the deadbolt not thrown—the door opened right up, swung inward on silent hinges, and stopped halfway open into Harry’s front hall.

Eggsy narrowed his eyes, and his breathing ratcheted up. _Don’t panic_. Slowly, he pulled his pistol from his shoulder holster and took off the safety as he stepped in the door, footsteps completely silent on the pale wood of Harry’s front hall. “’arry?” he asked, quietly, looking around, his glasses adjusting to keep his vision clear even in the dark of the empty house. “Harry, you home?” He was just about to start upstairs, or call Merlin, when the dim living room said:

“Please go away.” It was very quiet, and Eggsy froze, lowered his gun, and slowly shut the door. That was Harry’s voice, definitely. Tired, but not in pain—a distinction that Eggsy had learned intimately in the three years since V-Day. He relaxed almost immediately, closed his eyes, and breathed for a moment before he moved forward. “Just leave me alone, I don’t want to see anyone.” Eggsy holstered his pistol and walked through the dining room, still wary, and into the living room.

Harry was there, completely unharmed. He was sitting on the floor, collapsed next to his sofa, his head leant back on the cushions. He was wearing a rumpled dress shirt unbuttoned down past his collarbone and about halfway onto his chest with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows and crumpled trousers that were so badly wrinkled Eggsy wasn’t even sure the dry cleaners could save them. He didn’t even have shoes on, he was just sitting there with his feet sticking out from under his trousers, argyle socks on. His whole face was flushed red, he’d lost his glasses somewhere, and his hair, flopping down onto his face and around his head on the sofa was...curly. Absurdly curly, actually, not quite corkscrews but a complete mess of curls, none of Harry’s usual product in them at all. And, sitting next to his right hand, was the explanation for his present state of dishabille: two bottles of whiskey, one of which was completely empty and one of which was newly opened, by the looks of it.

“ _Harry?_ ” Eggsy managed, and Harry groaned, covered his face with his forearm, and, of all things, replied,

“No,” long and drawn out and whiny so it came out sounding more like nooooo and cracked in the middle.

Eggsy groaned, toed off his shoes, and walked over to where Harry was collapsed on his carpet. “What ‘ave you done to yourself?” He shook his head, clicked his tongue. “I was so fuckin’ worried about you, you little shit.” he added, and Harry made an unhappy, pained noise.

“I got drunk,” he replied, which was the obvious answer, and then Harry covered his face with both his hands this time. “I’m completely pissed, utterly shitfaced, there are two of you and my head feels like it’s about to split in half. Please go away, I want to drink more.”

Eggsy debated saying what a shit idea drinking that much in one sitting was at Harry’s age, and with the medication he had to take as-needed for his pain and migraines but didn’t, and instead went with “Jesus, Harry.” Eggsy sank down to a crouch next to him and gently pulled Harry’s hands away from his face. He’d taken off his eye patch and his good eye was bloodshot and both of them had bags sagging under them, the grey in his hair was remarkably advanced this close, and he looked completely exhausted. “You look like absolute shite.”

“Eggsy, my dear boy, I feel like it.” Harry slurred, “Please go away.”

“Nope. Let’s get you some water, yea’? Stay right there.” Harry groaned something inarticulate and probably rude, but Eggsy ignored him and went to the kitchen for a glass of water, and came back to help Harry drink it, which he did with extreme reluctance before he fell back against the sofa. Then, Eggsy sat down next to him, crouched on the carpet, and put his elbows on his knees. “We need to talk.”

“Right now?” Harry managed, blearily, and then gestured to himself, and his present state of being drunk off his arse.

Eggsy sat there for a moment, thinking of an answer, and finally settled for leaning forward, grabbing Harry by the front of his shirt, and dragging him over until they were kissing. It was one of the worst kisses he’d had in his entire life—Harry’s lips were dry and a bit sticky, his entire mouth tasted like whiskey and the unique flavour of a mouth that hadn’t been rinsed or opened in a while. His breath was rank, his face covered in stubble, and he made a muffled noise of surprise and pushed rather helplessly at Eggsy’s shoulder, trying to make him move back. He didn’t, not right away, just held the kiss until he had to pull back, waiting in vain for Harry to kiss him back, and then grabbed Harry’s cheeks, pressed their foreheads together, looked into his good eye.

It was the same beautiful dark brown it had always been, like the earth when it was fresh-churned after the rain, and at the moment, it was bloodshot and hazy with alcohol.

“I love you, you absolute tosser,” Eggsy said, holding him there so he couldn’t run away. “I’m still goin’ to love you when you’re sober. I’m going to love you in the morning, just like I loved you three years ago when you woke up out of tha’ coma and didn’t remember my stupid name, and I loved you when Valentine fuckin’ shot you. I’ve loved you since that moment you was standing in front of that police station, leaning on the wall like you was looking for some boy to take home or you were a model, or somefin’. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember, Harry. I’m always going to fucking love you, that’s the _problem_. I don’t care if you’re a trainwreck, or an upper-class posh stick-arsed knobhead, I don’t care if you’re going to spend the rest of your fucking life feeling guilty because Lancelot and me dad died or because of what ‘appened in that church, I don’t _care_ , ‘arry. I love you, even the part of you that can’t be happy. So stop actin’ like the world’s going t’ fucking end just because you’s afraid of me dying, because someday I am going to die and you’re going to die and you don’t see me drinking myself into hospital because you’re going to kick the bucket probably when I’m sixty, if I’m lucky, so get your ‘ead out of your arse and stop wasting _time_ , eh bruv?” Eggsy smiled, and pulled Harry closer by his shoulders and pressed his face into the older man’s shirt. “I’m not goin’ to leave you alone, now or ever. That’s the whole point of loving you, innit? Even if you didn’t love me back, I still wouldn’t. Never, Harry. Never.”

“Eggsy,” Harry said, his voice cracking, and he reached up one dry-palmed hand to take Eggsy’s cheek, tug him back up from his shirt. “Eggsy. Eggsy, my dear boy, _Eggsy_ , that’s the whole. That’s the problem, that’s what this is all about.” He closed his good eye and dropped his head, forehead thudding against the bone of Eggsy’s shoulder. “You told me in Cairo,” he murmured, voice almost inaudible. “When you thought you were dying. And you didn’t remember, when you woke up.” He faltered, one hand flexing and curling around Eggsy’s bicep and, all in one breath: “And then, I realised that I loved you as well but you didn’t remember that I knew that you loved me and so I thought it would be for the best if I just pretended nothing had ever happened but Merlin and Roxy have apparently been trying to set us up and I honestly, my dear boy, I just _honestly_ did not know what to do.”

It was quiet for a moment, and then Eggsy shifted slightly down the rest of the way to sit on the floor, legs stuck out next to him and bent at the knee, and leaned forward to put his head on Harry’s shoulder in return.

“We’s a right fucking pair of tits, aren’t we?” He said at last, and Harry laughed, brokenly, his shoulders and chest shaking.

“Yes,” he replied, hand still warm on Eggsy’s shoulder. “We are. Me, mostly.” He slid his hand further down, to cup Eggsy’s elbow. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Eggsy murmured. “That was a shite thing f’me to do to you.”

“A little, yes.” They just sat there, curled up around each other on Harry’s carpet, for what felt like ages. Eggsy listened to Harry breathe and the slow, even beat of his heart and was just glad that he was there and all right. “I take it Merlin told you, then?” Harry said, at last, and he seemed to be a bit more sober than when Eggsy had come in—less slur in his voice, although he still sounded spaced out.

“Yeah. About James. And ‘ow you blame yourself for his death.”

“I do,” Harry confirmed, quietly. “You, too. You both learned from me, and I’m reckless and stupid and I’m probably going to die in some reckless and stupid way someday, like running into a church and killing forty people and getting shot in the head.”

“It wasn’t reckless and stupid,” Eggsy said, holding onto Harry. “It was damn brave, tha’s wha’ it was.” He hesitated. “I still have nightmares,” he murmured. “Of Valentine’s gun. You know the last thing you said to him? Your voice—‘arry, you sounded like you was about to cry.”

“I was.” Harry’s voice was so soft Eggsy almost didn’t catch it. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I’d promised you I would come home, and I was never going to.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and then he heaved in a sob, once, his fingers curling into the wool blend of Eggsy’s coat. “I killed all those people, and I _liked_ it, and you were only going to ever remember me screaming at you and then watching me die. I couldn’t bear it, Eggsy. I couldn’t.”

And there, on his living room floor, Harry Hart broke down and cried, helplessly, and Eggsy held him and cried too, because there had been a time when they didn’t think he would wake up, and the last thing either of them ever saw together would be the barrel of a gun, and together they were each others’ last rock in the storm.

Afterward, Eggsy felt raw, like someone had scraped him apart inside, and he bit back a quiet sob as Harry shifted in his arms and made a wet noise.

“You came all the way over here,” he said, his voice thick with tears and snot, “And I’ve drunk so much I couldn’t get hard even if I tried and now I’ve ruined your bloody suit.”

“I’m not shagging you when you’re piss-drunk, anyway. God, Harry, tha’d be shit of me.” Eggsy sighed. And, mused silently, _when in Rome_. “Come on, then. Pass me the bottle and then let’s get you up to bed.” Harry laughed again, that same wet, tired sound, and shifted back, wiping his face on the back of his hand before he handed Eggsy the open, still-full whiskey.

He chugged a third of the bottle in one go, and then coughed, eyes watering as he stared at the label, trying to read it in the darkness of Harry’s living room. “Christ,” Eggsy coughed. “What the _hell_ is this?”

“Fifty years old, is what it is.” Harry made a sorry face. “And you’ve just drunk about fifty pounds of it.” Eggsy looked at Harry, a curious expression twisting over his face, smiling stupidly.

“Harry,”

“Yes?”

“Only you’d get yourself piss-drunk on rich whiskey.”

This time, when Harry laughed, it was a real one, and it took ten years off of him, his strong jaw smoothing with mirth and the age lines lifting from his skin for a moment. He looked beautiful, perfect, face covered in tear tracks and nose bright red and swollen, snot dripping onto his top lip.

Maybe it was the whiskey talking, but Eggsy thought he’d never been more beautiful.

 

 

The morning dawned bright and beautiful and gorgeous and in just a way through the bedroom window that the light simultaneously hit the eyelids of the two people crashed boneless and clumsy on the mattress.

“Mmf.” Said the younger one.

The older one, more eloquent and slightly more honest with a bit less of a filter, said, “Fuck.”

Eggsy slowly shifted, rolling, and pressed the back of his hand against his eyes. That somehow made it worse, and this time the noise he made was a lot more pained. The soft, but slightly uneven, thing he had his head on shifted again, and once again said “Fuck,” which was about the point that he realised his head was crammed into Harry’s armpit and he shifted slightly, and that was somehow an even worse idea.

“I hate you,” Eggsy finally managed. His mouth tasted like something had crawled up into it and died, and the Armpit Belonging To Harry Hart said:

“I have made a terrible mistake.”

Well, at least they were on the same page.

The amount of time it took two grown men to disentangle themselves from each other and the mattress was astounding, although not at all surprising, given that they had gone to bed drunk as skunks and woken up so hungover together the two of them probably did not have the brainpower required to do anything much more strenuous than make it down the stairs and make a pot of tea. Which they did manage, although it took near to an hour, and afterward, Harry lay collapsed facedown on his kitchen table, eyes shut, face slack and exhausted, his arms hanging limply at his side.

Eggsy just slowly, painstakingly, sip by sip, had a cuppa. With every time he moved, he winced.

“You know,” Harry said, from somewhere around the edge of the table, “We have to go to the office.” Eggsy grunted. He knew.

“Fuckit,” he replied, which was his succinct way of summing up his feelings on the matter. His memories from the night before after he’d started drinking were hazy, but they had somehow managed to get up the stairs and into Harry’s bed together. They had even gotten Eggsy’s shoes, coat, and watch off. He had no idea how, considering he now felt about as if he’d been run over by a train. And, considering he had been run over by a train once, that wasn’t high praise.

They sat in silence for a time longer, until Harry rolled his head to look at Eggsy, his brown eye cloudy and tired, his brow furrowed. Neither of them had even thought of trying to shave, so his cheeks and chin were covered with thin layer grey-brown stubble, and his absurd, ridiculous curls were still all over his face.

“I didn’ know your hair was curly,” Eggsy said, eventually, into the silence. Harry made a noise and shrugged slightly.

“Most people don’t.” He paused. “I straighten it a bit before I pomade it.” Eggsy snorted into his tea.

“You’re so fucking vain, you know tha’?”

“Yes.” It was so refreshing, so _reaffirming_ , to have things be normal between them, after what felt like years of things being weird. There was still so much left to say, so many thoughts to share, life experiences to give to each other, reservations and worries and fears and desires and love, above all else, hanging thick in the air between them. They both knew that, inevitably, they were going to have to talk about it. While sober. But, at the moment, the two men sat in companionable silence, and after a long breath, Eggsy reached out to take Harry’s hand, who took his fingers without complaint and held on, gently, watching Eggsy’s face with his visible good eye.

“I work too much,” Harry said, eventually, and they were both so exhausted Eggsy could practically see the gears turning in the older man’s head as he got the words out. “More than you. More than Merlin, even. I keep terrible hours, I like to go to bed at dawn and sleep until noon. I can’t cook for shit, I stuffed my dog and then got a terrible tacky tattoo of him on my thigh because I missed him so damn much. The last person I dated died and I still think it’s my fault. I’m ten years older than your father was, I’m disabled—“ and, oh, how Eggsy could see how much finally saying that, finally admitting it aloud for the first time ever, hurt him, “And I’m likely only going to get worse. I’m addicted to baking shows and historical romance novels, I’ve seen every film Emma Thompson has ever been in, I have debilitating nightmares and headaches and I’ll probably start having  regular seizures eventually too, I’m not much good at sharing my things. I’ve never lived with someone before in my life, except Merlin, and he’s almost as bad as I am. I fold and iron my pants. I’m an embarrassment, I can’t be happy, I’m terrified of commitment, I blame myself for everything, and I have no self preservation.” He paused. “And I’m a bloody wanker with abysmal skills at being an actual, functioning human being.”

“I’m reckless,” Eggsy said, in response. “And I’m soft-‘earted. Me sister and mum are always going to come first. I never finished sixth form, I like fast cars and drivin’ badly. I’m nobody, from nowhere,” Harry tried to cut him off, to interject, but Eggsy ran him over and continued, “And you’ve got a peerage, so don’t you fuckin’ try and deny I live up to tha’ kind of a silver spoon. I’ve never dated anybody for longer than abou’ a week without royally fuckin’ it up. My best female friend and I share a bed, and I drink too much. Someday, you’re gonna have to watch me get shot, or tortured, and we’ll both just ‘ave to deal with it. I watched you die, and I’ve still not quite forgiven you. I have nightmares, and I steal all the blankets and take long, hot showers so you can’t after me. I let me dog sleep on the bed, and I have a criminal record. I can’t even do a very convincing RP accent. I’m crap at languages, I love watching wrestling, and I’m an adrenaline junkie. I blame myself for you gettin’ shot, because if I hadn’t been a dumb arse fucking kid with a chip on me shoulder I probably would’ve shot my dog and gone with you, and then maybe I’d’ve been able to protect you, or at least die by your side.” He paused, and added, “And I got me belly button pierced on a dare one time.”

They stared at each other, quietly, still holding hands, assessing each other. It was all on the table between them now, honest and forthright and proper, and Eggsy took the step forward first.

“Harry, do you want t’date me?”

“I wouldn’t so much call it dating,” Harry began, and then continued, slightly less stiffly, “But that’s my age showing, I suppose. But, yes, I want to date you. Very much. Because I’m in love with you, and I suppose I’ve always been, and it’s clear that’s never going to change. It would be easier, I suspect, if I didn’t love you, but—“

“Harry,” Eggsy said, lifting the older man’s head off of where he was still slumped on the table, ran his fingers over his cheekbones, tangled his hands in his curls, and smiled. “Shut up.”

Eggsy kissed him.

This time, Harry kissed back. 

It was marvellous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check me out on tumblr [@professorjonathanphaedrus](http://professorjonathanphaedrus.tumblr.com/)


	4. samson came to my bed, told me i was beautiful and came into my bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or, the one where harry hart’s name appears in the papers for a second time)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> id like to thank annabelle again altho she didnt get a chance to beta this chapter, and then to go ahead and apologise for the delay (turns out im likely violently allergic to grass and ive spent the past three weeks in allergy hell) but i hope this is a good enough ending!! lord knows i tried

* * *

_you are my sweetest downfall_  
_i loved you first, i loved you first_  
_beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads_  
_but they're just old light, they're just old light  
_ _your hair was long when we first met_

At thirty, Gary (Eggsy) Unwin had settled into a routine. When home, he woke up every morning just before dawn, and he would go out running with J.B., who at six-verging-on-seven was still quite robust and energetic, and they would jog around the quiet streets of early morning London in the grey half-light of false dawn until they returned home to the mews, the houses just being lit up cream and gold by the sun cresting the horizon, where Eggsy would go upstairs to wake up his boyfriend.

Harry Hart at sixty was much the same as Harry Hart at fifty-four, plus the addition of migraines, the need for a prescription in his standard Kingsman-issue glasses, and his left knee starting to go shoddy. He was usually up by the time Eggsy climbed the stairs, and while Eggsy stripped his jogging clothes into the laundry basket Harry would shuffle blearily out of bed, tie on his house coat, and then—without fail—turn to go into the loo to wash up before they got into the shower and walk face-first into the door, upon which he would curse “Bloody buggering fuck,” under his breath, and get the knob on the second try.

It was remarkably domestic, for how it had all started. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

 

  

This particular morning, a fine crisp one in early September, Harry came down the stairs at half-past seven looking his usual amount of early-morning grumpy and leaned over to brush a kiss across Eggsy’s temple before he settled himself with a quiet _oof_ of effort into his seat at the breakfast table. He stretched his long legs out underneath it, and smiled when Eggsy sat a plate of toast and jam down in front of him. 

“This is that horrendous whole grain stuff, isn’t it?” Harry asked, picking up one of the slices of toast and making a po-face, and Eggsy snorted and ignored him, coming over with his extremely grown-up bowl of Coco Pops. 

“Merlin’s showed me your cholesterol numbers. The least you can do is eat bloody whole grain, Harry.” The older man made a very unhappy noise in the back of his throat but sadly ate his toast anyway, their ankles pressed together under the table as Eggsy scrolled his news feed on his phone and Harry read the morning paper on his tablet. “Looks like that new Emma Thompson movie is getting good reviews,” Eggsy said, around a spoonful of cereal. “You want to try and see it some evening?” 

“Mmm,” Harry said, in assent, and continued reading his paper, focused on far more concrete portions of the news cycle than Eggsy’s entertainment-based news enjoyment. He was so focused, in fact, that as Eggsy continued speaking, he didn’t react the way he usually would have. 

“We could go tonight,” the younger man continued, his tone light and conversational. “After we go out to dinner, since I know neither of us has an assignment and Merlin’s Handler for the evening, so you won’t have to sit the chair.” 

“Where were you thinking of going?” Harry asked, still not looking up, his freshly-slicked greying brown hair still too stiff from his pomade to be slipping down into his eyes from his neck-bent angle of reading.

“Veeraswamy, if you’re up for it. It’s been a while since we had Indian, yeah?” Harry nodded, absently, and scrolled down his tablet. “My treat.” 

“You don’t have to do that,” Harry murmured, tilting his head to the side slightly like he did when very focused. Eggsy took the opportunity while he had it, chasing the opening that would fade as soon as Harry wasn’t engrossed in whatever news story he was studiously reading, and took the metaphorical bull by its horns.

“’Course I do, Harry.” Eggsy smiled. “It’s your birthday, innit? Gotta spot you on your birthday.”

Harry Hart, international gentleman super spy, grown man of sixty years, who could take down forty people in three minutes and knew more languages and ways to kill someone than Eggsy could ever dream of knowing froze, stock-still, like a deer in the headlights of a trolley coming on so fast that the inevitable splattering was going to be horrifying, but quick. He stopped, hand still in mid-scroll, shoulders jumped in surprise, and didn’t breathe.

Then, very slowly, he looked up. Stared at Eggsy with his one good eye, which had the unique ability to be able to make Harry’s stare about ten times as effective for unnerving people because he got across two eyes worth of unimpressed glare out of one, and frowned, the lines around his mouth downturning in a pinch. “Eggsy,” Harry said, in his Arthur voice, which was about as friendly as a set of knives, “How did you know my birthday was today?”

“Funny you ask that,” Eggsy smiled disarmingly, trying to do his best to deflect the intense scrutiny on his boyfriend’s face, “See, you only turn sixty once and Merlin agreed that we didn’t want to let you avoid it this year, had to do something nice—“

“ _Merlin?_ ” Harry interrupted, his lips pursed so tight they were turning white. “Of course he did, the _bastard_ —“

“Harry, it’s your birthday, ‘course he was gonna fucking tell me, since you kept avoiding the damn question!” Eggsy dropped his spoon into his cereal with a clatter, and now he was scowling too, his voice raising in counterpoint with Harry’s. “We’ve been together nearly three years and living together for two of them—frankly, if I didn’t know you quite as well I’d be insulted you couldn’t tell me yourself!” 

“I didn’t want you to know!” Harry’s voice came out higher than usual, indignant. “And he should have bloody well listened to me when I told him that!”

“Why?” Eggsy shook his head slightly, brow furrowed. “What was you afraid of, Harry? That I was going to get you something?”

“Yes,” Harry responded immediately, and then, “Well, no. But that’s not the issue at _hand_ , Eggsy. I didn’t want you to know and Merlin told you anyway and now you’re planning some kind of a celebration and I don’t _want_ that, especially not from you, not this year, not when I’m—“ Harry cut himself off, his voice ending in an abrupt dead line, and Eggsy paused, looking at him, as Harry’s handsome face shifted quickly through several expressions before settling on something closed-off and reluctant.

“Harry?” Eggsy prompted, quietly, all the fight gone out of him. “Love?”

“Nothing,” Harry said, his voice laced with displeasure and his tone brokering no more questions, as he got up and put his empty plate in the sink for later, tossing the remaining crust to J.B. “We’d better go or we’ll be late for the morning meeting.”

“Harry, the meeting can’t start without you and we’re almost always bloody late,” Eggsy put in, half-standing. “What’s going on, you can talk to me, that’s what this whole thing is _for—_ “ them, this relationship, living together, and Harry’s shoulders snapped to a thin, razor-tight line.

“No, I bloody well can’t talk to you about it, because the entire issue is you,” Harry said, and Eggsy froze, staring at him with hurt eyes, bright green and soft at the edges as his mouth twisted and turned in. Harry almost immediately shifted, slightly, his eyes softening with guilt. “Eggsy, I didn’t mean that, I’m—“

“Harry?” Eggsy voice almost cracked. “Harry—You didn’t mean that—“

“No,” the older man said, at last, straightening his coat. “But I don’t want to—we aren’t speaking about it.”

“Harry are you having a fucking domestic with me over your fucking birthday _on_ your fucking birthday?” Eggsy was staring at him with his expression a mix of wordless anger, disappointment, and hurt. Harry’s expression looked, abruptly for a single moment, like he’d just been slapped.

“Yes,” said Harry Hart, Harry Prim Pompous Stuck Up Arsehole Couldn’t Be Happy For Ten Minutes In My Life If I Tried Hart, once he had his traitorous expression back under control. His voice, however, betrayed him—it quavered, shook, shattered. “We bloody well are.” He jerked his chin up slightly, and scowled. “I’ll see you at the office.”

He left the kitchen, and the house, so fast that Eggsy couldn’t even think of anything to say. He just stood there, one hand splayed on the breakfast table, and only after the sounds of their fight had quit ringing against the walls did he realise that Harry had left his tablet on the table.

 

 

Here was the upside to working with rather a lot of world-class spies: you always knew that as long as you were on the same side, basically nothing could happen to you.

Here was the downside: they’re fucking silent.

When the door to his office slammed open so hard that it flew wide to hit the wall (and if the wall hadn’t been metal, the door would’ve dented it) with a loud _thud_ and then a _wham_ and the quiet screech of metal on metal, Merlin jumped so suddenly that he almost dropped the disassembled laptop he was holding.

“I am going to fucking kill you,” said Harry Hart, who looked like he had just sprinted there—which wasn’t wrong, actually, as he had left his house, stomped his way to the shop, and then stormed his way straight to the tube out to the estate, where he had raged through the halls and people had gotten out of his way rather than be stepped on, and here he was. Looking like fury incarnate, with his hair mussed, his cheeks slightly flushed in anger, his lips a thin furious line, and his one good eye blazing.

“I haven’t even _done_ anything yet today!” Merlin replied, indignant. “It’s not even bloody nine in the morning!” Harry pointed one finger at him, eyes narrowed, and spat, 

“You told Eggsy when my bloody birthday was.” He slammed the door behind him, then, and the noise of it crashing shut was almost deafening as it echoed on the sheer modern metal and concrete room. “I cannot fucking believe you. After all these years and you went behind my back and did this.”

“Harry, you’re acting like I propositioned him to marry me, not that I told your boyfriend of three years when your bloody birthday was!” Merlin paused, then, as he realised the state of Harry’s disarray, and slowly lowered his hands, setting the tablet back out on his desk. “Harry...did you come without Eggsy?”

“Of course I did!” Harry was losing control now, the volume of his voice rising from quiet, controlled conversational toward outright shouting very, very quickly. “He has no business knowing my birthday or being involved in this at all!”

“Harry,” Merlin replied, face deadpan, “Are you listening to any of the words that are coming out of your mouth, because I’m pretty sure you just told me your boyfriend doesn’t need to know your birthday, when he quite frankly, despite you being a complete fucking arsehole, worships the bloody ground that you walk on, and all he wants to do is treat you to a bloody good birthday?” Harry stared at him, cheeks still bright, opened his mouth, closed it again, huffed, crossed his arms, shook his head, opened and closed his mouth a few more times before he finally managed,

“Well...when you put it that way. I. Suppose I may have overreacted at him, considering that Eggsy did nothing wrong aside from love me, but _you_ ,” Harry had gotten all of his righteous fury back despite his momentary lapse back into being a normal fucking human being, and he rounded on Merlin, pointing accusatorially at his chest, “You promised me you wouldn’t tell him.”

“I did no such bloody thing. You told me not to tell him and I _grunted_ , Harry. In what court of law has that ever been a verbally binding agreement to the positive?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Harry said, matter-of-factly, and walked straight at Merlin, who did the most logical and intelligent thing he could in that situation: he hopped over his desk and put it between him and Harry.

“I think this is a bit of an overreaction,” Merlin replied, hastily edging around the desk to keep it between him and Harry no matter what. “You’re sixty, isn’t part of that being mature and _not_ brutally murdering your best friend for not being as much of a massive fucking wanker as you are?”

“Not today it bloody isn’t,” Harry replied, and Merlin ducked the other man swiping at him.

“Harry, for Christ’s fucking sake, will you just calm down?”

“No,” Harry swiped again, and this time Merlin blocked the strike and slapped his hand away.

“Why are you so upset about this anyway?” Merlin asked, skidding around the side of the desk as Harry misjudged his depth perception to try and grab Merlin’s lapels. “I can think of at _least_ eight other things I’ve done this week you should have your knickers in a twist about but this wasn’t one of them!” 

“Because!” Harry shouted, finally losing what little tenuous control he had left on his emotions, his lips a thin, white line, “Because I’m sixty fucking years old and Eggsy is thirty and quite frankly, I don’t want to be reminded even more of the fact that if he stays with me, he’s going to end up caring for some mindless gibbering invalid when the rest of my head goes and I end up spending the rest of my fucking life in a nappy. He can’t marry someone like that!” He shouted it, and as soon as he finished speaking, he let out a few quick breaths, his eyes closed, and he pressed one hand to his forehead, shoulders slumping with exhaustion now that he had finally gotten it out.

“Oh, Harry...you and I both know that isn’t going to happen,” Merlin said, quietly, shifting around the desk now that Harry had blown off the worst of his steam, and set a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Harry, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but you’re still yourself. Having a disability doesn’t make _you_ a disability. Everyone forgets things as they get older.” Harry’s dark brown gaze was monocular, disarming, and stony, but Merlin had known him for long enough that Harry glaring at him was about as effective as a kitten trying to bite you—there were teeth, but they weren’t yet very good at being teeth. 

“I don’t want him to feel obligated,” Harry said, quietly. Merlin pulled him into a one-armed hug.

“Have you ever known Eggsy Unwin to not make himself completely fucking transparent the minute he was unhappy with something?” 

“Put like that,” Harry hesitated, “No.”

“My point precisely. Harry, if he didn’t want to change your damn nappy he’d tell you. Roxy’s already told me the minute I can’t go to the loo by myself anymore she’s putting me in a home, and I think Eggsy’d be just about as honest.”

“You have a fair point,” Harry murmured, and sometimes, Merlin wished for the pre-trauma Harry Hart back—funny, but snide, prickly and difficult but so very well balanced, with the tenacity and the wit and the unbreakable iron-clad will and self control of a god, but that Harry had survived so much to be the Harry they had now, who worried so much about so many things, and was just categorically completely incapable of being happy.

They were all very different people, after V-Day.

“Are you going to stop blubbering on my shoulder now?” Merlin asked, and Harry replied immediately,

“I am not _blubbering_ ,” and he pulled away, good eye dry, and took a few deep breaths. “I suppose I’d best apologise to Eggsy before he decides I’m a completely irredeemable tosser.”

“I think he knows that much at this point,” Merlin said, in his best reassuring voice, and Harry stepped on his toe out of nothing but pure spite, and left the office significantly more sedately than he had come into it, pressing his hair back into its immaculate styling, armour and walls returning, going back up, closing back off.

 

 

Apologising to Eggsy went...not at all well, as it turned out. Mostly because the younger man avoided him for most of the entire morning and was sent out to accompany their newest agent in the afternoon, and came back in the evening just about at shop closing time.

Harry met him at the top of the stairs up toward Arthur’s office and for a moment they stared at each other in silence before Harry said, very quietly,

“I’m a great big fucking git,” Eggsy’s face turned into a wan smile before Harry reached out and took his hand, rubbed his thumb over his knuckles. “I’m so sorry we had a row like that. You didn’t need me to shout at you. I quite certainly win ‘Daft Arsehole of the Year.’”

“Again,” Eggsy supplied, and Harry sighed.

“Again.” He hesitated, and squeezed Eggsy’s hand. “Your offer of a movie and dinner was lovely, my dear boy. That is, if it’s still standing.”

“Well, I have to feed you somehow,” Eggsy’s smile morphed into a grin, and he squeezed Harry’s hand. “Seeing as you can’t fucking cook.” 

“An old dog can’t learn new tricks,” Harry intoned mirthlessly, because if they were going to be honest about it they might as well be _honest_ and he was honest-to-God a sixty year old man who could not fucking cook to save his life, and Eggsy outright laughed at that.

“That’s a fucking lie and you know it.” Harry smiled, pressed their foreheads together, and sighed. 

“I suppose I do know it.” 

“Come on,” Eggsy tugged on his hand. “It’s your birthday, ain’t it? Can’t work twenty hours on your birthday unless there’s an emergency, and last I checked we’s in the clear.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Harry said, hopelessly, because now they really were going to have one.

  

 

They didn’t have an emergency. The film was lovely, Emma Thompson as wonderful as ever, and curry at dinner was frankly perfect—just the right amount of spice and vegetable together, with some lovely jasmine rice. Afterward, as they walked home holding hands, not really saying much of anything, until Harry broke the silence.

“I’m sorry about this morning.” 

“It’s fine,” Eggsy replied, squeezing his hand. “I get it, I think.”

“You do?” Harry looked over at him and Eggsy shrugged, spinning his Rainmaker in his hand.

“You’s private, Harry. ‘S part of who you are, and I’ve always known that.” Eggsy squeezed his hand, smiled. “I wasn’t going to even ask Merlin, since I knew you’d want to tell me on your own, but this was one I couldn’t miss, you know? I love that feeling,” Eggsy’s smile turned wistful, and he moved half a step closer so that he could lean his head on Harry’s shoulder, closed his eyes for a moment, took Harry’s hand in both of his. “I love this. Just us, growing old together. It’s fucking lovely, it is.”

Harry’s throat felt like it was full of lead and cotton and he took several frightened, deep breaths as they reached the front step of their townhouse, and everything from earlier came back to him suddenly and hard like a punch to the stomach, but he locked it up, put it away, and opened the front door with slightly shaking fingers and stepped inside, Eggsy following him. “Harry,” Eggsy said, quietly, as Harry shut the door and leaned against it, breathing, for a moment. “Harry, did I say something wrong—“ 

“No,” Harry managed, and then, “I.” And “Yes.” He took a few more deep breaths and slowly walked over and sank down to sit on the stairs and pressed his face into his palms and just...breathed, for a moment.

“Harry,” Eggsy sat down next to him, hand on Harry’s bad knee, “This ain’t like you. You hardly seem like yourself.”

“I know,” he said, absolutely miserable. “It’s ridiculous and childish.”

“If something’s wrong, you know you can talk to me about it.” The words his therapist had parroted at him for a year. Harry grunted, and finally uncovered his eyes and sighed and stretched his legs out and looked over at Eggsy, who was watching him, concerned.

“My...darling boy,” Harry said, at last, wetting his lips for a moment as he thought. “That’s the whole problem. That you want to grow old with me. Eggsy, I could not bear to be a burden on you for the rest of your life. Saddling you with someone older, someone who will die long before you do—“

“Not in this line of work, mate,” Eggsy cut in. “You and me both know I could die any fucking time, so don’t pretend otherwise.” Harry sighed, sharply. Eggsy was right, of course.

“Very well. Given that you will live out a happy and healthy live to an appropriate age, I will predecease you significantly. Even should I make it to ninety, which I don’t think is very likely with my health problems, you’ll only be sixty, and still with plenty of life left in you. I don’t want you to spend the golden years of your life, when you should be happy, or raising a family, caring for me. I’m just going to keep getting worse, my love. I’m starting to forget things, and seizures aren’t a good sign. I don’t know how much longer I’ll truly be myself. Even...Merlin thinks that it’s not safe for me to go in the field much longer, with my knee going.” Surgery wasn’t even an option, since it was nerve damage that caused it to be so sluggish. “The thought of you having to care for me, to clean up after me, help me do basic tasks, just...” he trailed off, and reached out to cup Eggsy’s cheek in his hand. “Eggsy, darling, I can’t do that to you. I just can’t. You need to have your own life.”

And Harry wasn’t the only one tying himself in knots about it, either. On Merlin’s birthday, a month earlier, he’d spent the entire afternoon crying helplessly in Harry’s loo, profusely apologising to Mr. Pickle all the while, vomiting into Harry’s toilet while wailing piss-drunk about how he was a horrible boyfriend because here he was sixty years old and now he and Roxy would never have children and even if they did he’d die too damn early for it to be worth it and how soon enough he’d have to take Viagra and he was a horrible boyfriend, and—rinse and repeat. Harry had given him water, occasionally taken away the alcohol, and patted his shoulder and told him he was a good chap. 

Harry actually wasn’t sure which one of them was failing at this whole turning-sixty thing more.

“You great daft wanker,” Eggsy said at last in reply, and kissed the bottom of Harry’s palm. “Did you ever think that maybe I don’t _mind_ taking care of you? Yeah, I get tired and cranky sometimes, but so does everyone. And, more importantly—Harry,” Eggsy took both his hands and stared earnestly into his eyes. “Harry, Harry, you cock, did it ever occur to you that, maybe, you _are_ my life? I fucking love you, you disaster, I love you so goddam much. I don’t fucking care, you can’t upset me. I’ve got a sister twenty-three years younger than me, Christ, Harry. Do you know how much bodily refuse I’ve seen? You ain’t gonna upset me if you get old and even more crotchety. I’ll still love your pasty arse anyway, because that’s what love is, Harry. They say in sickness and in health for a reason.” Eggsy squeezed his shoulder, smiled like the sky at daybreak. “Come on, Harry. You done now? You get it?”

“I suppose, but I still don’t understand. I don’t deserve you.” He let Eggsy coax him to his feet and followed the younger man upstairs. “I don’t deserve _this_. I’ve done nothing today but ruin absolutely bloody everything. Roxy says she’s going to put Merlin in a home and somehow that might be better than you having to take care of me forever. First I completely cocked-up this morning, and now I’ve ruined a perfectly good evening, and you have every right to be furious,” 

“I’m not,” Eggsy never was.

“And now I’m rambling and—“

“Harry.” Eggsy turned around on the stairs, still holding tight to Harry’s hand, and he stopped mid-word. “Harry, please. For once in your fucking blessed life will you shut up and come to bed because I have not spent the past three days with my cock in a chastity belt to give you the birthday sex of a fucking _lifetime_ for you to blow it all on you being a prat.”

Harry opened his mouth. Felt his face heat and flush _very_ red.

And closed it again, so hard his teeth clicked. Finally, he managed, “Well, my dear boy, when you put it that way I don’t suppose I can do anything but.” 

“Good!” Eggsy grinned. Harry murmured,

“Cheeky.”

 

 

They ended up in the bedroom what seemed like an interminably long time later, Eggsy’s fingers knotted into Harry’s hair to try and rip it out of its styling, and Harry just kept making desperate, unconscious noises into his mouth, stripping Eggsy with sure hands that knew just where each button was, just where each place to squeeze was, until Eggsy was pliant and soft and wanting and warm against his mouth.

“This is _just_ what I was talking about,” Eggsy said, breathless against his lips, as Harry finally got his shirt off and pushed both the younger man’s shirt and jacket down onto the floor, where they crumpled in a pile that was badly in need of dry cleaning. Eggsy practically jerked off Harry’s tie, dragged him backwards with it until it slid to the ground and then Eggsy pulled him by his shirt lapels instead, thumbs deftly undoing Harry’s buttons. 

“Don’t wrinkle my shirt,” Harry said, and Eggsy laughed into his mouth.

“But mine’s fair game, eh?”

“Of course,” Harry sniffed, shifting to shed his shirt and tossing it, folded in half along with his suit jacket, onto the armchair in the corner of his bedroom before he returned to kissing Eggsy, backed him up the rest of the way against the mattress like he clearly wanted, and slid his hands down the front of Eggsy’s slacks, thumbs rubbing against his hipbones, and the younger man made a quiet, breathy noise into Harry’s mouth, and bit at his lower lip.

“Cheeky,” Eggsy was out of breath, and it was Harry’s turn to laugh, all the stress from earlier not forgotten, and their argument not put aside, but left to lie for a while, and perhaps that was for the best.

It was so rare, for Harry to actually _let something go_ even for just an evening, that there was no doubt in his mind that he needed this.

“Come on, gorgeous,” Eggsy said, sinking back to sit down on the edge of the bed, wrapping his strong hands around Harry’s hipbones. “Let me get that for you, eh?” Harry didn’t stop him, just let the younger man lean forward and undo his button fly with his teeth, Harry’s breath catching in his lungs at the look of it, his heart pounding in his throat. After he did that, Eggsy paused before undoing his belt and pushing his slacks down to add, “Shoes, Harry,” and belatedly, the both of them bent down to take off their shoes, Harry lining his up by the bedside table and Eggsy kicking his somewhere off in the corner, prompting Harry to add, chiding, 

“Those are very expensive shoes, Eggsy,” and earned, 

“A bit of bouncing ain’t going to harm them,” in return, cheeky as ever, and Harry leaned down and in retribution shoved the younger man down onto the bedspread, flicking his belt open with a clack and then deftly pulling his flies open and sliding his slacks and pants down until they were trapped around Eggsy’s thighs, and he moaned quietly, rocking up against Harry, and Harry gasped in surprise when Eggsy’s cock bumped against his own.

“Christ,” he murmured, shifting back, slid between Eggsy’s legs, and he ran his hands down the inside of the younger man’s thighs, over smooth skin peppered with freckles and moles and, here and there, scars. His lover’s cock was bright red and locked up in a plastic cage and—how had Eggsy remembered his one-time offhand comment, years before?—drooling slightly from the tip. His balls were huge and engorged, and Eggsy was watching him with wide, bright green eyes that were so deep Harry could have fallen into them. “You look...” his mouth was dry, and in lieu of being able to find the proper words for something he was utterly at a loss with, Harry just ran the backs of his fingers over the base of Eggsy’s stomach, to the thick curls at the base of his cock. “Absolutely stunning.”

Eggsy laughed, breathless, and Harry was just utterly transfixed by the sight of him, his cock so red and wanting and denied the very thing it wanted most. “Three days,” Eggsy said, quietly, looking up at Harry from beneath his thick lashes, pink lips damp from their kissing. “Had this on three days for you.” Harry’s fingers at his base shook. They’d last had sex three days prior, and usually, Eggsy had a libido that basically could not be satisfied with anything but constantly rubbing one out in the loo. “It’s been fucking _torture_ , Harry.”

“I can imagine,” his voice came out of his throat tight and deep, and Harry could see the effect that it had on Eggsy, his eyes dilating. “Oh, my darling boy...you were so patient for me, weren’t you?” Eggsy nodded, eyes wide. “What did you do, all that time?” 

Eggsy smiled, and it was almost all teeth, and Harry paused and narrowed his eyes slightly because after five years, he knew that look. That was a look that said many things, but it mostly said this: Eggsy was being a pert twat, and he shimmied out of his slacks and pants, soft cock locked up and bouncing against his thighs, and then turned over, and Harry was pretty sure if he’d been a few years older, the sudden rush of blood from his head to his cock would have been enough to possibly cause him a heart attack, because Eggsy had a plug up his arse, black plastic widening his cheeks, and Harry’s low, emphatic murmur of “ _Fuck_ ,” said worlds for what that did to him. Eggsy looked at him over his shoulder, smiled, and wiggled his arse.

“Had to come up with something, what with my cock off limits. The key’s in your bedstand, by the by, whenever you decide you want me out of it.” Harry’s breath came out of his throat a choked-off whine, and he had to lean over slightly, press his body in a long, hard line up against Eggsy’s, and the younger man made a quiet noise of contentment, before adding,

“ _Yes_ , Harry.”

 

  

There was a murmur of desperation under Harry’s skin that didn’t seem willing to silence no matter what he did, like all the anxiety and fear and the desperation focused and tangled was just buzzing in his veins, finally quieting and calming into a hum that breathed when he breathed, that moved with him, and that—like him—opened up to Eggsy like a flower to the sun. 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Harry murmured reverently, not for the first time, when he pulled the plug out of where it was nestled between Eggsy’s cheeks with a wet pop and the younger man breathed quick and high at the feeling, his fingers clenching tight in Harry’s hair. “Look at you, you gorgeous thing. All wet and open for me.” Eggsy keened, quietly, and nodded, his hair sweat-slicked over his face.

“You fucking bet, fuck, I was so mad at you this morning when we had the row because I went to all this fucking effort and you was too mad to enjoy your birthday,”

“I am enjoying it immensely now,” Harry put in, sliding his fingers up inside Eggsy, who was wide open, and damn, and crooked them to press up against his prostate. He swore, gasped, and clenched his fingers in Harry’s hair. “You fucking gorgeous thing.”

“Harry, Harry, fuck,” Eggsy was edging on toward babbling remarkably quick, his legs drawing up off of the sheets as he shifted his hips up against Harry’s fingers, biting his lower lip into rawness. “Please, Harry, I need you so fucking bad I’ve needed you so bad for days, haven’t come with my cock once, Harry,” it was like every touch was magnified a thousand times for his gorgeous boy, and Harry pressed a kiss against the skin at the juncture of Eggsy’s thigh and hip and worked him open steadily with his fingers. Fingering Eggsy was a pleasure, his boy gloriously gorgeously responsive, and this just made it better, his soft cock flopped up over his stomach and leaking _everywhere_. “Harry, please, I need, you gotta go harder Harry please _Harry_ ,” he was shaking, and Harry shifted slightly, three fingers inside Eggsy to the knuckle, and he pinched Eggsy’s prostate between his fingers and squeezed.

Eggsy shouted when he came, shaking, legs tensed like iron and fingers white-knuckled in Harry’s hair as he licked through the slit of plastic on the chastity belt onto Eggsy’s dripping cockhead, the younger man pulling him closer and desperately crying out, shaking and arching off the bed and vibrating like he was fit to burst out of his skin. 

“Harry,” he kept saying the whole time, begging, a litany, a prayer, and Harry proved he was worth that, worth that promise, fingers still squeezing and milking Eggsy through it until he was crying, desperate, shaking, and coming down off of his high, his green eyes wide and wet, and he said, in a voice hoarse from moaning and crying,

“Harry, if you’s going to fuck me like that all night, I don’t know why I didn’t do this sooner.”

Harry felt his cheeks heat slightly, and laughed, sheepish, and pressed his face into Eggsy’s thighs, smudging his glasses.

“Couldn’t help myself.”

Eggsy was breathless and wide-open with laughter, and Harry couldn’t begin to think of all the things he wanted to do to him.

 

 

Later—after Harry had rimmed Eggsy until he came, crying again—he slid into the younger man with a long, slow breath and they stayed very still for a moment. Eggsy was crouched, pliant and loose-limbed above Harry, his head pressed bonelessly against Harry’s shoulder. 

“How’s that?” he asked, quietly, and Eggsy made a quiet noise. He was tired, but so lovely for it, and his balls were drawn up tight and red and wanting. “Good?”

“Yeah,” Eggsy managed, hoarse, one hand fisted white-knuckled in the sheets by Harry’s thigh, the other splayed on the base of the older man’s stomach. “Yeah, ‘s good.” He shifted side to side, his puffy, abused arsehole clenching down on Harry, and a choked-off noise fell out of his mouth, to which Eggsy laughed, breathless. “You just love it when my arse is all sore on you.”

“I can’t deny that,” Harry replied, voice low and strained. “Not at all.” Eggsy was still shifting side to side, but he finally settled himself, comfortable, and Harry leaned forward, kissed his cheek, avoiding his mouth given what his own had been doing recently. “I’m going to take it off,” he murmured into the skin of Eggsy’s jaw, and the younger man nodded, held very still as Harry got the key out of his bedside table and unlocked the band of the belt on Eggsy’s cock, and slowly drew him out, the lovely length of him glistening, wet and wanting. “Oh, Eggsy, look at how lovely you are, my boy. You’re so beautiful, Eggsy.”

“Fuck,” Eggsy replied, eloquently, when his cock fell soft down against the skin of Harry’s stomach. “Oh, fuck,” he shook all over, moaning, and Harry got to watch the singularly gorgeous sight of Eggsy’s cock finally catching up to what it had wanted all evening, burgeoning quickly and going from soft and so beautifully wet to hard and hot, bright red and leaking from the tip, bent back against his stomach. He’d been coming wet all night, but it was milky and sticky. He hadn’t ejaculated in three days, and Harry reached forward to run the palm of his hand gently over the head of Eggsy’s cock.

Eggsy yelped, bucking up into his hand, and for the third time added, “Fuck!” as he grinned at Harry, green eyes bright and cheeks flushed. “Oh, fuckin’ ‘ell, Harry. Oh, Harry, fuck me, fucking please.” Harry laughed, and gently stroked him a few times until Eggsy was loudly moaning his usual litany of vulgar approval, bucking up into his hand and then back to dig Harry’s cock further into him. 

“Good?” Harry asked, wrapping his free hand under Eggsy’s arse, fingers pressed against the wet, swollen rim of his arsehole (Eggsy rewarding him for the touch by practically hissing with pleasure), shifting his legs up so that Eggsy could lean back against his knees. “More?” 

“Na,” Eggsy murmured, thighs tensing as he started grinding and shifting down on Harry’s cock like he liked to, taking his slow damn time, using Harry for his pleasure (and, oh, what a blessed fucking sight that was) until he had a pace going, thighs trembling with the effort post-orgasm. “’S good, so fucking good, Harry. God, you’re so fucking good on me, you feel so good,” Harry couldn’t kiss him from this angle, so he just leaned forward to press his face against Eggsy’s chest, breath uneven.

Harry had never professed to have the patience of a saint. What he sure didn’t have was the ability to watch his partner come apart twice, gorgeous and so damn needy, and then to not fuck wildly into him. His hips were already shifting up off of the bed, fucking deep into Eggsy’s body with small, steady thrusts, and Eggsy kept shushing him, doing something with his muscles that made Harry tremble. 

“Please,” Harry murmured, the words pressed into the sweat-slicked skin of Eggsy’s pectorals, Harry’s lips catching on one pink nipple. “Fuck, Eggsy, please, you’re killing me.” Eggsy laughed.

“I’m killing you, Harry? Seems to me it’s the other way around, love. I don’t think I can do thrice in a night easy anymore.” Harry grunted, because it was true—Harry himself might be getting older, but Eggsy certainly wasn’t getting any younger, either.

“Can you, or should we stop?” Harry asked, breathless, looking up at Eggsy’s flushed face, and he shook his head.

“This time, I can.” He smiled, widely, one cheek dimpling, and Harry shook for a moment, affection swelling with arousal inside him, before he finally broke and thrust his hips up off of the bed, catching Eggsy mid-roll, and they moaned in time, holding tight to each other as Harry did it again, and Eggsy caught him, thrust back down, cock bobbing. 

“You feel like heaven,” Harry panted, watching Eggsy like if he took his eyes away the younger man would disappear. “Eggsy, you’re so good, you’re so fucking good, I love you, you darling boy,” and Eggsy moaned,

“Harry, my cock, _Harry_ I’m so fucking close, Harry, please, I need you so damn bad—“ Harry reached forward, took the younger man’s bobbing erection in hand, and stroked him twice before Eggsy came hard, moaning with his voice high and unbroken, splattering Harry’s stomach in thick, wet ropes of semen (three days, good Christ), his whole body clenching down as his hips snapped forward, and that was enough for Harry to come, holding tight onto the younger man as he shook through the aftershocks, jerking into him and filling him up, Eggsy’s name on his lips.

With all the tension in his body gone, Eggsy practically collapsed down into Harry’s arms, and he caught the younger man gently, pressed open-mouthed kisses to his shoulder while Eggsy made quiet noises. “Tha’s lovely, tha’ is,” Eggsy murmured, patting Harry’s side, not making it clear what in particular he was talking about. “Jus’ lovely.” They sat there, tangled together, Harry’s face buried in Eggsy’s shoulder and Eggsy’s in Harry’s hair, and neither of them said anything, they just curled closer together.

Some time later, Eggsy sighed and shifted, Harry sliding limp and wet out of him, and then they settled back down again, Eggsy’s fingers tracing over the scars on Harry’s torso, including a fairly recent one—still pink and unhappy looking—from Latvia, six months before.

“I can hear you thinking,” Eggsy said, eventually, fingers still soft on Harry’s skin.

“’M not thinking,” Harry replied, not bothering to open his eye, slumped back against the pillows, one hand wrapped around Eggsy’s waist, the other plucking at a loose string on the duvet below them.

“Yes you are.” Harry grunted. The truth was, he actually _hadn’t_ been thinking, at least when Eggsy had spoken. 

“You’ve fucked the thoughts right out of me,” he replied, and Eggsy snorted into his chest, pinched the sensitive skin to the right of his nipple, making Harry grunt unhappily. “Uncalled for, my dear boy.” 

“Something’s still bothering you.” Eggsy shifted, until Harry knew he was sitting up, and he opened his good eye to look up at the younger man, propped on his elbow, watching him. Post-fuck, Eggsy’s hair was a complete mess, and his skin practically glowed, sweat drying in the dip of his clavicle. Harry hesitated, and then reached out to trace the other man’s own eclectic set of scars—scattered across his torso. Less than Harry had, but not by much. Eggsy was reckless. 

“I feel...guilty,” Harry began, at last, watching Eggsy’s expressive face and looking for the right words. He reached up one-handed and tugged on a lock of the younger man’s hair—at the top of his head, where his first few grey hairs had started to come in. Eggsy was already opening his mouth to cut him off, and Harry gently pressed his finger over the younger man’s lips. “No, love. Please, just hear me out.”

“Is it going to be the same bullshit you was spewing earlier?” Eggsy asked, eyebrows raised, and Harry opened his mouth, and closed it again.

“Well, yes, but—“ Eggsy cut him off with a huff and a roll of his eyes, Harry for once not admonishing him about doing that at his age. 

“Then you hear me out, love.” Eggsy shifted more, sitting up with a wince as he put his weight on his well-abused arse. “You’re feeling guilty because first,” Eggsy ticked off one finger, “You’re going to get old, and shit yourself or something, and you don’t want to saddle me with some old tosser who doesn’t remember who I am. And, second,” he ticked off another finger, “Because you’re afraid you’re feeling selfish that you’re going to get me killed because of the ‘being my boss’ thing, and that you feel like you shouldn’t be worried you’re going to lose me young because then you’ll be alone.”

Harry hesitated, but Eggsy was as always spot on, so he just wilted slightly, and Eggsy sighed, running his fingers through Harry’s utterly ruined hair, pulling on the strands, already bunching back to being curly because of his sweat. “Harry, please. You love me, yeah?” 

“Of course I love you,” Harry said, rather miserably. “I don’t know if it would be better if I didn’t, but I do love you. I _adore_ you, my dear boy, and I know that if we didn’t have each other I would likely be dead, and if not, we’d both be utterly miserable.” 

“You got that fucking right.” Harry sighed, and squeezed Eggsy’s thigh as the younger man shifted more to lean into him. 

“No, Eggsy, I don’t want this—I don’t want us—to end. I don’t want to let you go, Eggsy. Now, or ever. You’re the absolute best thing that has ever happened to me, although Merlin might fight you on it if you ever mentioned it to him.” Eggsy smiled, cheeky. “That doesn’t mean I’m not afraid of what the future holds. Frankly speaking, I’m scared shitless that someday I’m going to wake up one day in ten years, and not remember who you are. Or not remember...who I am.” He didn’t say it aloud, but he thought it— _he didn’t know which one of those was worse_.

“So what?” Eggsy said at last, shrugging. “Harry, I said it earlier. Either one of us could die any day. Or we could both live to ripe old age. There are plenty of people who’ve been shot in the head and had almost no brain damage, and there will be plenty more in the future. Merlin’s right, bruv, I think the loss you’ve had can be explained away by you just getting fucking old.” Harry groaned.

“What are we going to do when I can’t get it up any more, Eggsy? What then?”

“I’ll just fuck you more often, ‘s all.” Eggsy brightened. “Plus, like, Viagra and such. I think we can find ways around _that_ problem.”

“What about if I break my hip and you become my full-time caretaker and you can’t go in the field any more—“

“Now you’s just looking for excuses,” Eggsy accused, and he was right. Harry deflated into the bed, and folded his hands on his chest, watched the younger man while Eggsy rubbed his thumb over Harry’s hipbones.

“I suppose I am,” he said at last, closing his good eye. Harry sighed, and finally, _finally_ , after everything else, got to the heart of the matter.

“I’m scared,” he said, at last. “I always assumed I would die in the field. Young, hale and hearty. Every other Galahad before me did, it’s always been a position not exactly made to hold up. I lasted thirty years, I figured that was good enough. Only I survived, and now I’m going to work a desk job until I die of constipation or something ludicrous at ninety, and I’m honestly scared of growing old. I don’t know what to do with it—I don’t know what to do with _myself_.”

“Nobody does, Har.” Eggsy sighed, squeezing Harry’s waist—which had expanded slightly, to his consternation, in the past year. Harry was still in very good shape, but he was starting to go a bit to seed round the middle as he aged. “You think I have any idea what I’m doing? I’m lucky enough I’ve got you around, to look up to, or I’d still probably be about twenty in my head. That’s part of growing up—you’re confused, you’re scared, whatever.” Eggsy hesitated, and then added, “I know I’d rather do it with you, than do it alone.”

Harry let out a slow, wet breath and opened his eye again, looking at Eggsy, who smiled sadly at him. “Do you really want to?” he asked, quietly, voice cracking. “Spend the rest of your life with me, even as I get worse? No matter what happens?”

“’Course I do, arsehole.” Harry laughed slightly, and he sat up to wrap an arm around Eggsy’s shoulders, pulled the younger man over until he could bury his face in Eggsy’s hair.

“There’s nothing I would love more,” Harry murmured into the soft skin behind his ear, and Eggsy squeezed him.

“Then you’re stuck with me come hell or high water, mate.” Eggsy laughed, and then added, “Does this mean you just asked me to marry you in the most roundabout, fucking useless way?”

Harry hesitated, and then started laughing too, pressing their heads together. “Yes,” he said, “I suppose I did.” 

“Only _you_ , Harry,” Eggsy said, smiling up at him brilliantly. “Only you. God fucking knows what you’d do without me anyway.”

“I would be a terrible mess,” Harry agreed, and then, because it was called for, leaned over and kissed Eggsy, despite the state of his mouth.

Eggsy kissed him back, and then and there, naked, covered in sweat and spunk, filthy beyond imagining, on a bedspread that very badly needed to be washed, on his sixtieth birthday, Harry decided that maybe, just maybe, growing old wasn’t all that bad after all.

 

The Telegraph

September 20, 2020

_ Gary Unwin of London and Earl Harrison H. Hart of Strathmore and Kinghorne, were married in a private ceremony on the King Estate Grounds, with the attendance of their families and friends. They wish to ask that all gifts be donated to the V-Day International Fund in their names, or in the name of James Trevelyan. _

_  
_

* * *

 

 

( epilogue ) _  
your hair was long when we first met_  
_i loved you first_  
 _i loved you first._

Harry Hart awoke in the middle of the night, groggy, to the insistent press of his bladder. He slid out of bed, despite Eggsy’s protests, and nudged J.B. away from his feet as he shuffled into the loo, did his business, washed his hands, and stepped back into the master bedroom, the light of the restroom illuminating the bed for a moment.

There are occasions when one feels utterly suspended in time, nothing going forward, nothing going back, and Harry felt he was in one now. The curtains across from the bed were half-open, and the yellow light of the streetlamp along with the silver of the moon left the bed aglow. J.B. snuffled, twisting around on the foot of the bed until he flopped over, and he stared at Harry with large, soft eyes. 

Eggsy’s blond hair was lit by the light of the loo light and from the street, giving it a soft, ethereal golden glow, and he yawned, face mashed into Harry’s pillow, back to the older man, the strong lines of his shoulder blades and spine vanishing down into the sheets, draped around his waist. His hand was curled into a fist into the cloth of Harry’s pillow, and Harry had to just stand for a moment, watch him.

“Galatea never does quite like Pygmalion,” Harry whispered, his voice hoarse with sleep, hanging warm in the air. “His relation to her is too godlike to be altogether agreeable.” He stopped, paused, heart in his throat, and pressed his good eye against his hand on the doorframe for a moment to stave off tears.

“Harry, you fuck,” said the pillow, Eggsy’s voice slurred and his accent nearly unintelligible with sleep, “Come back to bed.”

Harry smiled to himself, small and secret, cheeks dimpling.

It seemed that, just this once, Galatea had consented, and stepped off his pedestal, and into Pygmalion’s waiting arms—and, oh, was Pygmalion all the happier for it.

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on tumblr [@professorjonathanphaedrus](http://professorjonathanphaedrus.tumblr.com/)


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